ERP and CRM: The Perfect Duo

By: | Category: CRM, ERP

The key to some of the challenges most organizations face today is a successful ERP and CRM integration. Yes, you can bring together financial, managerial, and marketing procedures in one place. But will newly integrated systems be adequately maintained? Will all data be transferred? Will navigating a newly integrated system remain easy? Oh yes it will.

It takes planning, testing, and a well-choreographed rollout, but if done properly, the advantages of ERP and CRM integration are enormous: your company gains improved access to data and collaboration, more comprehensive views of customers, and more efficient workflow.

What more? The systems can be moved to the cloud, which allows for more seamless integration, more flexible access, an intuitive user experience and far less administration.

Two is Better Than One, Here’s Why

The expression “two is better than one” gains more meaning when applied to ERP and CRM integration, indeed they are the perfect duo. Singularly, ERP makes a company’s financial operations and management processes seamless, while CRM coordinates customers and services to promote positive customer interactions and brand experiences. Combined, the functionality of the two systems skyrockets exponentially.

Here’s an Overview of the Benefits of Uniting the Two Systems Together

  1. 360 degree view of your customer which allows you to quickly respond to inquiries and orders. Marrying ERP and CRM gives you a comprehensive view of each customer. From prospect, to sales and support, to finance and accounting, an integrated platform provides insights into your customers’ needs, buying habits, preferences, account status, etc. This way, you keep on top of your customer base and its ever-changing needs – even anticipating these needs. This helps build lasting relationships which results in growth for your corporation.
  2. Better access to critical information, improving collaboration between your front and back office. As a team, CRM and ERP solution puts real time information at your fingertips. This allows your reps to provide more responsive and better informed service – which translates into a considerable savings in time and money. A call center rep can quickly let a caller know the status of their order without having to go through multiple systems. With a mouse click or two, your customer-facing employees can retrieve on demand inventory levels, shipments, customer financials, order history, returns, payments, pricing, etc.
  3. Streamline business processes, boost profits. Without an integrated solution, many business processes are siloed and disjointed. A key value to joining your ERP and CRM software is improved productivity through streamlining processes and automating workflow. Additionally, an integrated solution cuts down on the amount of duplication of data entry tasks, saving your organization a significant amount of time.

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Integration Touch points

Frankly, merging this functionality into a single coherent system can be taxing. There are numerous “touchpoints” where data and specific functionality need to be aligned in order to provide a seamless user experience. This requires considerable planning, testing, and even an organization-wide orientation program to onboard senior management and all employees using the system before it goes live. But the perks outweighs the efforts.

Here are several typical integration touch points and outcomes:

• Creation of an ERP customer master record from a CRM account record (or vice versa)
• View customer financial summary information in CRM
• View Invoice History and Sales Order History in CRM
• CRM quote to ERP order
• Field service integration with CRM
• Integrated RMA management
• Professional Services and other time billing

Individually, ERP and CRM systems brings a whole lot of value to a company. But synthesized into a single cloud solution the value becomes even greater, giving your organization a competitive edge. ERP and CRM integration elegantly combines all your financial, managerial, and marketing procedures on one easy-to-use platform. Looking to improve customer visibility and streamline these critical internal and customer-facing business processes? An integrated ERP/CRM cloud solution is clearly the way to go.