Do I need to integrate CRM and ERP systems

    This issue arises on the agenda in almost all companies that have implemented a CRM system.

    I will not discuss here on the advisability of implementing CRM systems, as such. Moreover, on this occasion I have a separate post in LiveJournal . We will proceed from the fact that you have already implemented a CRM system.

    After a very short period of time elapsed after the successful implementation of the CRM system, the company’s management begins to understand not only the futility of introducing this CRM system, but rather to feel that “the suit is too small”. That is, the company, after the introduction of the CRM-system, gets into a situation when you start to drive on a decent (and sometimes not so) car on asphalt and, very quickly, the road rests in the forest and it is not clear where to go further.

    Indeed, in essence, CRM is only the very beginning of the business chain. Getting started with a client. What to do next? After all, the chain has just begun. Well, well, you brought the client, well, formed an order, well, let's even put up an invoice. What's next? Further payment, money, procurement, warehouse, delivery, God forbid production, etc. I'm not talking about all kinds of contracts, acts, invoices and other important documents and processes.

    The company quickly comes to understand that this is not the way to work. It's one thing when the company has not only a CRM system, but no system at all, and everyone works in the usual (and, unfortunately, familiar) information mess and chaos, no matter how ridiculous it may look. And it’s a completely different matter when you have a small piece of business processes that is still decently automated by the same CRM system. It is terribly annoying when the part is well resolved, and then chaos again. I really do not want to use such a familiar product under the name "ekseelemeyloaskovordoskypotelefonokurilka" for information support of business processes.

    And then you come to the understanding that you need to move on and make sure that all business processes, and not just their beginning, are somehow “settled down”. What to do is understandable. Introduce some product that knows how to do it. We will call these products ERP systems. It makes no sense to decrypt the abbreviation, not so much because everyone already knows, but because this abbreviation has become just a household name and does not need to be decrypted at all. Like Xerox in Russia. Everyone knows that this is a machine that makes copies.

    After the choice of the ERP system is made, you will experience a new headache - what to do with the CRM system, which you are so anxious about. After all, several precious months (and sometimes not only months) were spent on its implementation. You can’t simply throw it away (although I personally recommend doing just that when it comes to implementing ERP). Therefore, you ask ERP developers to integrate their product with your CRM system. Some who are smarter refuse, and some who are afraid to lose a client agree.

    And then dances with tambourines and attempts to cross a crocodile with a hippopotamus begin. I’m not saying that it is impossible to cross a crocodile with a hippopotamus, but it’s just connected with “some” difficulties.
    Difficulties will be not only technical, but also ideological.

    Well, here are the simplest examples:
    you entered the client into the CRM system. Now this record should "go" to the ERP. But what a nuisance is necessary - when entering a client in the ERP system, a certain field is required, and there is simply no similar field in the CRM system. But this is not even a problem, but rather a minor nuisance.

    Solving the problem of multi-format data is much more difficult. When in one system the field is numerical, and in the other the same field is textual. Or, for example, with addresses. For example, in a CRM system, the client address is entered in plain text in one field. And in the ERP system addresses are strictly structured in nature, where the street, city, country are selected from directories. You can, of course, agree with the managers that they enter the address in the CRM system in the following order: first the index, then the comma, then the space, then the city, then the comma again, etc. But I do not believe in such discipline of managers. So you have to rake this comment in search of streets, cities and countries. And, of course, reap the benefits of various “interpretations” of city names and weights.

    What some directories in the ERP system will turn into as a result of the joint work of these two products is also easy to assume. For example, a directory of posts. If in the CRM-system the position of the contact person is not selected from the directory, then in the ERP system soon even a plunger will not help you to clean the directories.

    And if the client has been changed in the ERP system? This should now be reflected in the CRM system, right? This means that integration should be full, two-way. And close to on-line. You will not wait until tomorrow until the name changes.

    The client called you, you brought him into the CRM system. And you need him to deliver the goods to him right now. You have been hilling this client for six months. And it’s necessary for such a nuisance to happen that integration, as luck would have it, broke today precisely because yesterday they installed a new version of the CRM system. This new version, unfortunately, turned out to be incompatible with the place responsible for integration. No, of course, everything will be repaired the other day. But the client will not wait. Just a CRM system and an ERP system are produced by completely different companies, which will never coordinate their actions.

    In addition, you will need to get used to the fact that you enter some data in one system and others in another. But the worse is that you will also have to look at some data in one system, and others in another. So you will switch between applications endlessly.

    I'm not talking about the complexity of support. If you have a question on the CRM system, then ask here, and if on the ERP system, then here. I don’t even know how long you will last.

    Uncle Fedor from Prostokvashin uttered the wisest phrase: “To sell something unnecessary, you must first buy something unnecessary.” I’m not saying that the CRM system is absolutely “unnecessary”, but you won’t be able to sell it. So before implementing a CRM system, keep in mind - it may turn out that you will find yourself in an even more difficult situation than the heroes of Prostokvashin.

    I would like to hear the comments of those who personally “drank” a similar scheme of work.

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