Six integration points of CRM and ERP

On the one hand, there is a vigorous informatization construction, while on the other hand, there is an isolated information system. Various software systems, while striving to help enterprises improve, are "Old and dead ". How can we communicate with each other? It has become a major obstacle for enterprises to overcome in the "Post-Information Age. The author summarizes the six integration points of CRM and ERP.
Nowadays, the increasingly in-depth information process has brought the customer relationship management system (CRM) and enterprise resource planning system (ERP) into more and more enterprises. Some old problems have been solved with the implementation of information technology, but it also raises some new problems. How the isolated ERP and CRM work together makes CIOs of enterprises worried.

CRM can improve customer satisfaction and seize the customer's purchase opportunities to make money for the enterprise, mainly reflected in the management of customer information outside the enterprise; ERP can reduce production costs, reduce customer maintenance, and reduce development costs to save money for enterprises, mainly reflected in internal resource management. The two seem to be isolated from each other in an external and internal way, but the fundamental meaning of creating value for the enterprise makes the two seemingly independent systems fundamentally inextricably linked. The integration of the two systems also needs to be based on these connections. I will summarize it as the six entry points of CRM and ERP integration.

Entry Point 1: Customer Mining

CRM has related tools to help enterprises find high-quality customers. Such as the customer's historical order amount, product profit contribution rate, customer complaints, and other parameters to help enterprises Select customers. ERP can also use related tools to help enterprises collect the order amount of customers within a period of time, and the profit level of the purchased products. Therefore, some functions of the two are the same, and most of the data related to CRM analysis comes from ERP systems, such as gross margin of products and historical order summary.

If the two systems are independent of each other, they must be opened in the two systems each time they place an order. The profit margin of the products can only follow the standard profit level, the actual profit level of each order cannot be tracked. This brings a lot of trouble to the daily work of enterprises.

Through integration, orders placed in CRM can be directly taken to the ERP system, or order data in the ERP system can be shared with CRM without repeated input, the ERP system can calculate the actual cost based on each batch of products and order. CRM can obtain the cost data from the ERP system. If the customer's profit contribution rate is analyzed, the system can be more accurate and practical.

Entry Point 2: customer management takes effect from 1 to 2

ERP and CRM both use some basic information of the customer, and some are sensitive information, such as the customer contact, credit line, payment conditions, and other information.

ERP is relatively weak in customer management, because it focuses not on customer management, but on improving enterprise management efficiency. CRM focuses on customer management. For example, in tracking and handling customer complaints, the customer information is also comprehensive in the CRM system, which can record the historical communication with the customer. Combine the two systems to achieve data sharing. You only need to input customer information once to call the two systems together, greatly reducing the work intensity of business personnel and avoiding complaints from the past.

Entry Point 3: ERP driven by CRM

Basic product information, product BOM, custom configuration and quotation are required in CRM and ERP systems. In the CRM system, historical quotations and customer reply information are recorded. Based on the customer's final response, the R & D department can quickly generate basic product information to prevent multiple versions of product information tables between the business department, production department, and R & D department, this is a problem that many enterprises urgently need to solve.

There are multiple versions of information tables between multiple departments. On the one hand, data must be input repeatedly, resulting in a waste of work. On the other hand, data is not shared and prone to errors, due to data updates and other reasons, data may be inconsistent among multiple departments, thus making the external statement inconsistent. If the customer makes a small change to the packaging method. The business is only reflected in the CRM system, but not in the ERP system, which makes the production department unable to produce according to the new customer requirements, and finally leads to complaints from the customer. Therefore, the unification of product databases in CRM and ERP systems is particularly important.

Entry Point 4: Order Management to avoid short size

Both ERP and CRM have order management, which can be said to be completely overlapping. In actual work, many enterprises put quotations and other related jobs in the CRM system, and put the jobs of customers after placing orders in the ERP system, the customer has manually separated the jobs ordered by the customer, which is inaccurate and prone to errors.

Before placing an order, the clerk must negotiate with the customer several times, from the color of the product to the specification and size of the product, and the price, it usually takes dozens of times to communicate. If ERP is used to record the communication history, it seems a little cumbersome, and it is easy for CRM to do these tasks. Combine the two to allow CRM to prepare for relevant orders. After the customer finally confirms the product information and price, the product can automatically generate sales orders in the ERP system based on the confirmed information, so that the parties can supplement each other.

Entry Point 5: tracing Marketing Management

Both CRM and ERP systems have sales management functions, but they have different focuses. In terms of sales management, the CRM system emphasizes the process, opportunity management, time management, and contact management. In the ERP system, the results and sales plans and achievements are emphasized. The marketing tools provided by CRM are beyond the reach of ERP. However, many parameters used by marketing tools in CRM are provided by the ERP system.

For example, if CRM wants to analyze which products contribute a lot to the enterprise's profit, the ERP cost module can help CRM calculate the product cost as a key product to be promoted in the next year. For another example, CRM wants to know which customers bring profits to the enterprise, whether some Personalized Requirements of key customers are reflected in the production of products, and whether the delivery period can be met, these data are from the ERP system.

If the two are not integrated, the data must be calculated from the ERP system and then entered into the CRM system, which is time-consuming and laborious and prone to errors.

Entry 6: merge customer satisfaction into one

The ERP system focuses on internal enterprises. Therefore, for external customer satisfaction, it simply provides some customer sleep records and solutions, but does not record the detailed communication process with the customer. CRM manages customers in an all-round way and emphasizes Customer Care to improve customer satisfaction. Therefore, the ideal result of the integration is to achieve a unified database of customer complaints, complaints, and services through unified customer satisfaction management. The data required by the two systems can be used as needed.

There are also many methods to integrate CRM and ERP, such as data synchronization and replication, ERP System Integration CRM module, and secondary development, however, they all aim to achieve data sharing, improve work efficiency, and reduce errors. In the future, I will talk about various integration methods and advantages and disadvantages based on specific cases, and hope to continue to pay attention to them.