In theory all sales, marketing and support functions can be found in one gigantic application. This does have the advantage that customer relevant data can be gathered in one place, but think of what happened to programms like Open Access or Lotus 1-2-3: they were replaced by single programms such as those making up Microsoft Office.

There is much to be said for using separate applications for these three functions, just as Front and Back Office are separated. True, many ERP-Vendors offer a CRM component, but in most cases this only demonstrates that no-one can do everything. SAP may appear to combine these functions, but looking carefully one sees two products with a single marketing blanket.

The market seems to be moving away from fully integrated solutions. Companies today are looking for tools to improve sales efficiency without involving support and help desk groups – the more complex the support operation, the more is this apparent.

Sales people need data when visiting existing customers (see “ERP meets CRM”), the level of detail depending on the products concerned. A sales person selling for example to retailers or wholesalers will be more interested in purchase patterns than a person selling CRM software. All sales people will be interested in certain factors such as share of budget and order frequency and size.

In well organized companies there will be a sales plan per customer, so what the sales person really needs to know, is whether or not the sales are above or below plan. In this case it is only necessary to know if sales are on plan or not. Detailed information is only required when there are deviation from plan or when new requirements arise. A display as shown above will tell the sales person at a glance if all is OK or if there is need to examine things in more detail.

During the planning phase of a new CRM installation, I would strongly recommend an analysis of sales data required and close attention to the presentation of the data. In many cases a simple red-yellow-green indicator could be informative and time saving.

Travelers on the London Underground are used to taking a big step when the train carriage stops at a curved platform. A similar mismatch exists when ERP and CRM systems need to be interfaced, but the solution is not so simple.

Most solutions for CRM Users involve either the import of data to CRM from ERP or direct access to the ERP systems, but this is not what CRM users really want. CRM users need:

• indicators, when things go wrong or not according to plan and

• aggregated figures or KPIs with the ability to drill down when needed.

ERP manufacturers have tried to create their own integrated CRM applications, for example SAP or SAGE, only to find that CRM apps must be considerably more flexible than ERP systems and that a tight integration makes the CRM System inflexible. More on this in a later post. The solutions of these companies now supplied are in fact not tightly integrated at all, they only appear to be.

Of course, this can be done by importing large volumes of ERP data, but this redundancy is not beneficial to performance or flexibility. A better solution is to insert a middle layer of multi-dimensional data so that CRM Users can use simple dashboards for their data access.

Typically products such as SAP Netweaver or BW are in a position to supply suitable data, but BW projects tend to be long and complex and make it difficult to keep up with sales people who change their requirements often dependent on market and sales conditions.

The most economical and practical solution is to introduce a middle layer and to use products such as QlikView or Dundas Dashboard to present and manipulate data. There are more products available, but it happens that I have recently been involved in evaluating these two.

It is surprising that CRM integrators often ignore this middle step. Controllers would never think of going directly to raw data during the financial planning process.

Bei fast allen CRM-Vorhaben wünschen die Anwender Informationen aus dem verwendeten ERP-System. Das ist verständlich, es fällt aber auf, dass häufig Zahlen und Auswertungen verlangt werden, die so nicht vom ERP-System zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Komplexe Schnittstellen werden gebaut um die Informationen im CRM-System anzeigen zu können. Dabei wäre es wirtschaftlicher und sinnvoller die gewünschten Daten ohne Umweg über eine Schnittstelle holen zu können. Langfristig ist dieser Weg auf jeden Fall die wirtschaftlichere Lösung, denn CRM-Systeme werden viel häufiger abgeändert oder ausgetauscht als ERP-Systeme. Alternativ ist der Einsatz einer BI-Lösung als Zwischenschicht zumindest bei größeren Unternehmen sinnvoll.