Integrating CRMs and ERPs – Pros and Cons

Recently many businesses have been considering the path of implementing the integration of CRMs and ERPs. Up until now they have been implemented separately  and have functioned beautifully that way for years. A thought that arises to the new pattern of the integration is that, why would a business want to take on the added cost or even consider taking the risks that go with bringing them together?

Just a background for people who don’t know what an ERP or a CRM is, an ERP system is used by businesses for functions like managing receivables, inventory and finance, whereas, CRMs are systems used to manage relationships, and most importantly hold data regarding sales, may it be straight forward new sales or even cross or up selling. Now it is true that a company could definitely leverage a lot by integrating or in better words bring together these 2 systems.

There are many reasons why this is also a good idea, if a business were to disregard the risks and take it as a challenge. Integrating the 2 systems would help companies with high volumes of sales to see almost immediate to immediate benefits with regards to the process of order-to-cash. Marketing will also be benefitted greatly, one such benefit is the insight into the customer base. The integration of the 2 systems will allow business to concentrate on their most valuable customers and work harder towards the prospective ones.

Integration of the 2 systems will also bring about a benefit for the business in terms of money as that is one of the key indicators of a successful business. This concept was first brought about between 2006 – 2007 if I am not mistaken, and even now most businesses including many major corporations still fear the outcome of this concept.

The most important question for a business to consider before making the decision is, Does CRM and ERP integration make sense for your business? The answer should be simple once the business evaluates their key metrics namely, sales order volume, returns volume, financial calls, accounting queries and most importantly the personnel in your organisation who deal with the orders. Once all these metrics are evaluated, consider the option again evaluating, profitability versus productivity.

If one outweighs the other, figure out which one is more important.