How Nussbaum Got Full Pipeline Visibility with SAP Sales Cloud V2

Nussbaum Matzingen AG is a Swiss packaging manufacturer. The company had grown, but the way it managed sales had not grown with it. There was no central CRM.

Customer information, leads and opportunities were spread across Excel spreadsheets, Outlook folders and the SAP ECC system. Management could not answer basic questions with confidence: how much is in the pipeline, what is likely to close this quarter, which deals are stuck? The field sales team spent more time looking for information and typing it in twice than selling.

TL;DR: Nussbaum had no CRM and was live on SAP Sales Cloud V2 five months after kickoff, summer break included. Three data sources (Excel, Outlook, SAP ECC) now feed one pipeline that management reads in real time. What made it work: a tight first scope around leads and opportunities, a connection to the existing ECC via SAP Integration Suite, three focused BTP extensions (CTI, an AI lead service, SharePoint documents), and intensive training before go-live.

Nussbaum at a glance

Industry	Packaging manufacturing, Switzerland
Starting point	No central CRM; data in Excel, Outlook and SAP ECC
Solution	SAP Sales Cloud V2, SAP Integration Suite, custom apps on SAP BTP
Time to value	5 months from kickoff to go-live
Data sources consolidated	3

The full customer story, including the quote from Nussbaum’s Head of Marketing, is in our Nussbaum success story.

Why Sales Cloud V2?

Nussbaum needed a CRM that was fast to introduce, affordable, and able to grow with the company. Three things decided it.

It fits the existing SAP landscape. Nussbaum runs SAP ECC on premise. Customer and order data already live there, so the CRM had to exchange data with ECC reliably rather than become another island. We connected the two through SAP Integration Suite, including the configuration needed on the ECC side.

It works where the sales team works. Sales Cloud V2 runs in the browser on laptops, tablets and phones. Field reps can log a visit or update an opportunity between appointments instead of at the end of the week.

It can be extended without touching the core. Where the standard stops, we build side-by-side apps on SAP BTP. That kept the CRM itself close to standard and upgrade-safe, while still covering the needs that were specific to Nussbaum.

How the five months were structured

Five months is quick for a first CRM, and the project ran over the summer holidays. It worked because the scope was agreed early and decisions were made quickly.

Discovery and design. We mapped the sales process from first contact to order: how leads arrive, who qualifies them, which stages an opportunity passes through, and what management wants to see. The data model was designed around that process, not the other way round.

Core configuration. Accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, activities and visit planning, configured in the standard wherever possible. Every customisation we avoid now is one that does not need testing at every release later.

Data migration. Consolidating Excel, Outlook and ECC was the hardest part, as it almost always is. Spreadsheets carry duplicates, outdated contacts and free-text fields that mean something different to every rep. We cleaned before we imported. Our guide to migrating from Excel to Sales Cloud V2 describes that work in detail.

Extensions and integration. In parallel we built the BTP applications and the ECC connection (details below).

Training and go-live. Intensive training was a deliberate investment. A CRM only produces pipeline visibility if people keep it current, and that depends on whether they find it easier than the spreadsheet it replaces.

What we built on top of the standard

Three custom applications on SAP BTP (CAP on Cloud Foundry) cover what the standard product does not do on its own:

• Spadoom Engage (CTI). Incoming calls are recognised and the matching customer record opens immediately. Nobody searches for the customer while they are already talking. How this kind of telephony integration works technically is explained in our CTI integration guide for Sales Cloud V2.
• AI lead service. Incoming emails are analysed automatically and turned into qualified leads in the CRM, instead of waiting in someone’s inbox.
• SharePoint integration. Documents stay in SharePoint, where Nussbaum already manages them, and are accessible from the CRM.

What changed for Nussbaum

One pipeline, in real time. Management now works from a dashboard with the key figures, from the opportunity pipeline to the activities of individual team members, instead of a monthly spreadsheet compiled by hand.

One source of truth. Marketing, sales and management use the same, current customer data. The three separate sources are gone as places where the truth lives.

A lighter daily routine for sales. Call recognition saves time on every call, leads arrive already captured, and visit planning is based on data everyone can see.

Value from day one. Because go-live came after five months, the benefits started early. In the words of Nussbaum’s Head of Marketing, the project “brought order to our data chaos in record time”.

What you can take from Nussbaum’s project

Start with the pipeline. Pipeline visibility is what management feels first. Advanced reporting and further automation can follow once the basics are in daily use.

Budget for data quality. Moving from spreadsheets sounds simple and never is. Plan the cleanup as its own work package, with owners on the customer side.

Connect the ERP from the start. A CRM that does not know about orders and customers in the ERP will not be trusted for long. The same applies later if you move from ECC to S/4HANA: our transformation approach covers ERP and CX with one team, so the seam between them does not become a gap.

Know the product’s limits before you promise. Some requirements are better solved by a BTP extension than by bending the standard. We wrote down where V2 still falls short in our honest assessment of Sales Cloud V2’s limitations.

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Want the same visibility over your pipeline? We will show you what is realistic for your organisation and timeline. Get in touch.

Frequently asked questions

What does Nussbaum Matzingen do?

Nussbaum Matzingen AG is a Swiss packaging manufacturer. Before the project it had no central CRM; sales information was spread across Excel, Outlook and SAP ECC.

How long did the Nussbaum implementation take?

Five months from kickoff to go-live, including the summer holiday period. That covered the Sales Cloud V2 configuration, migration from three data sources, the ECC integration via SAP Integration Suite and three BTP extensions.

Can we achieve a similar timeline?

It is realistic when the scope is focused and your team can make decisions quickly. The main variables are data quality, the number of systems to integrate and how much you want in the first release. Larger rollouts with several ERPs or countries take longer, and we will say so in the first workshop rather than halfway through the project.

Does Sales Cloud V2 work with SAP ECC, or only with S/4HANA?

It works with both. At Nussbaum we connected the on-premise ECC through SAP Integration Suite and made the necessary configuration on the ECC side. If you later move to S/4HANA, the CRM stays and the integration is adapted.

Which custom applications did Spadoom build for Nussbaum?

Three side-by-side apps on SAP BTP: Spadoom Engage for CTI (the customer record opens with the incoming call), an AI lead service that turns incoming emails into qualified leads, and a SharePoint integration for documents.