What value does integrating your CRM with ERP system bring?
In the last few decades, Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) has established itself as an indispensable backend software system for businesses, but with the rapid flow of information on the Internet and the prevalence of e-commerce, corporates that failed to acknowledge changing customer habits or analyze market data effectively and put it to their use will eventually be forced out of the game. While ERP can help monitor workflow and streamline production and sales, it lacks the ability to maintain and cultivate existing customers’ relationships and develop new customers. Contrarily, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can consolidate customer information and perform detailed analysis, allowing businesses to shift from a production-centric approach to a customer-centric model and, ultimately, into a comprehensive management platform.
One of the biggest advantages of ERP and CRM integration is that it gives you a complete view of your customer. From prospect to sales and support to finance and accounting, together, these systems can provide you with a complete picture of your customers’ needs, buying habits, order history, preferences, account outstanding, etc., that can help you build lasting relationships with customers. With the integration of ERP and CRM, orders done through CRM can be automatically synced into the ERP system. With more accurate data, companies can easily identify who is the most profitable customers and allocate more resources on them.
A key benefit to merging your ERP and CRM software is enhanced productivity through streamlining processes and automating workflow.
by enabling disparate departments to collaborate more easily.
by providing employees the means of updating a single, centralized database.
by giving managers and business owners an enhanced visibility over their products and customers. For example, when you want use CRM to find out the most income-generated product, ERP’s costing module can help companies analyze by plugging in cost and profit data. On the other hand, ERP can also provide accurate data for studying a customer in CRM’s database when you want to find out which customer is the most profitable or whether delivery schedules are met.
with more productive employees and more efficient business processes.
“ERP systems provide much-needed internal information that can be shared with new stakeholders. CRM systems provide the entry point for customers to engage with an organization. You can't really have one without the other and be successful in the marketplace. What’s more, with the two systems tied together, if a name is changed or core data altered, it is updated across the system, making work processes much more efficient.”