CRM Business Partner Concept

What is a Business Partner in MDB ?

Can be a person, an organization or a group
Has central data like name, address, bank details and person, organization or
group-related data
Can appear in different roles depending on the business processes for example
prospect, ordering party and competitor

Can have different type of relationships to other business partners for example
is contact person, is shareholder of
Can be part of different hierarchies or groups

Confidential

Business Partner Architecture

Customizing

Strategic

Address - Parameter

Address

Business Partner - Group Hierarchy Type

Business Partner - Group Hierarchy

Business Partner - Relationship Attribute

Business Partner - Relationship

Business Partner - Attribute

Business Partner

Business Partner - CRM - Attribute

Business Partner - CRM

Business Partner - BBP - Attribute

Business Partner - BBP

Confidential

Business Partner - Subtypes

Customizing

Business
Partner

Business
Partner Type

strategic

Natural
Person

BP-Grouping
Language
Data Origin Type
Authorization
Tax Number Category
Academic Title

Organisation

Name Prefix
Name Affix
Marital Status
Legitimation Type
Profession
User

BP-Group

Legal Entity

Subtypes

Legal Form
4

Confidential

Business Partner - Components

Address Type
Address

~
Address

Business
Partner

~
Identification

Identification Type

~
Bank Details

Bank

~
Payment Card

Payment Card

~
Industry
Sector

Industry Sector

~
Sales Tax
Identification

Tax Number Category

Confidential

~
Address
Usage

Business Partner - Extension

Business PartnerCRM Customizing

Business Partner - CRM

BP - Sales Employee List
BP - Sales Classification List

BP - Business Hours
BP - Partner Function List
BP - Partner Function Exclusion List

BP - Status
BP - Sales Rule List
BP - Shipping Rule List

BP - Billing Rule List

BP Business Agreement Set

Confidential

Business Partner Relationship

A Business Partner - Relationship is a Business Connection
between two Business Partners.

BP 3

BP 1

BP 2

Relationship

Relationship

is undefined
Partner of

is ship to party of

Relationship
"is responsible person for"

BP 4
7

Confidential

Business Partner Relationship

Address

~
Address

Department Type
BP Employee Function

Authority
VIP - Indicator
BPRelationship
Type

Business
PartnerRelationship

~
Contact Person

is ship to party of
is employee of
Business
Partner

~
Company
Participation

Extension

Currency

Confidential

Business Partner Relationship: Example

Contact Person

Organisation
Organization 1
BASF Plc
delivers to
delivers to

is Contact Person in the

Function of Manager
Organization 2
xy
is store of
Organization 3
yz

Contact Person 1
is Contact
Person of
Contact Person 2
is married to
Contact Person 3

Confidential

Business Partner Relationship category

details

A BP-BP relationship can exist between two business partners.

The BP relationship category describes the essence of the relationship and characterizes the features of the
relationship.
A differentiation is made between a one-way and an undirected BP relationship category. In the case of a one-way
BP relationship category, a relationship exists between one BP and another, but not vice-versa.
Examples:
Relationship category
Marriage (undirected)
Employee (one-way)
Subsidiary (one-way)
Contact person (one-way)

BP1
Adam Miller Eve Miller
COM Inc.
COM Inc
COM Inc

BP2
Adam Miller
CBH and Co.
Adam Miller

The cardinality of a relationship category determines whether a business partner can have a maximum of one
relationship of a relationship category at a certain point in time (such as a marriage), or whether the relationship
category means that multiple relationships can
be assigned (such as contact person).
The relationship categories that can be selected depend on the business partner category. When creating a
relationship the system can check whether the BP is maintained in a certain role (role dependency of relationship
category).

10

Confidential

Business Partner Hierarchy

Define groups (hierarchy nodes)
Use groups to build hierarchies
Example: For a chain of
retail outlets, buying group,
co-operative

Assign BPs to groups

(hierarchy nodes) within
the hierarchy

From mm/dd/yyyy
To mm/dd/yyyy

Central
Discount 3%

North

South
From mm/dd/yyyy
To mm/dd/yyyy

BP100
Region A
BP10

BP20

Region B
BP30

Region C
BP40

Area XY
BP60

11

Confidential

BP70

BP80

BP90

From mm/dd/yyyy
To mm/dd/yyyy

BP50

Business Partner Hierarchy

Separation of hierarchical structure and business partner master records
No 'dummy business partner' required
Optimized performance
From mm/dd/yyyy
to mm/dd/yyyy

Sales area-independent structure

Conditions are assigned to hierarchy nodes

South

Reassignment across hierarchies

Yes, for BPs
No, for nodes

From mm/dd/yyyy
to mm/dd/yyyy

Region B

Time-dependent assignment
Node to node
BP to node

12

Discount 3%

From mm/dd/yyyy
to mm/dd/yyyy

BP30

Confidential

Business Partner Role Concept

Consumer

Customer

Employee

Businesspartner

Salesperson

Competitor

Contact Person

Different CRM processes require different data.

Depending on the business process, specific data needs to be
maintained for the BP, thus one BP can have different ROLES.

13

Confidential

Business Partner Address Determination

Standard Address

BP Addresses
Address 1
BP

Address Types
Correspondence
address
Delivery address

Address 3

Customizing

Standarduse
useofofaddress
address
Standard

14

Send letter

Send reminder

Address 2

Application

Transaction

Confidential

Deliver goods

Control

Application
program