The Ultimate ERP & CRM Implementation Plan E-Book · The Ultimate CRM and ERP Implementation Plan...

The Ultimate CRM and ERP Implementation Plan E-Book A comprehensive guide to ensuring project success, generating software ROI, and mitigating all the risks along the way

Copyright Datix 2016

1 | P a g e Copyright Datix 2015 all rights reserved

| Table of Contents |

Title Page |Page 1|

Table of Contents ||

Introduction |Page 3|

Chapter 1: Innovate, Improve, and Grow Using The Software |Pages 4-‐6|

Chapter 2: Why Processes Are More Important Than Software |Pages 7-‐13|

Chapter 3: Why You Should Strive To Build A Connected Enterprise |Pages 13-‐20|


| Introduction |

How to Use This E-‐Book

Enterprise software projects are known for sapping funds and taking way longer than expected to complete. When it’s all said and done, jobs hinge on these implementations, the end-‐system is responsible for the company’s future revenue growth, and the businesses that fail in this process often face difficult futures.

Mitigating risk is the name of the game. Organizations often put these projects off due to the risk and headache that they are known for. Unfortunately, putting the project off can cost your business money too; raising the stakes even further for these critical implementations. So what’s a company to do?

In our 17 years of experience, we’ve developed a strong sense of what makes and breaks these projects. The comprehensive information below is a basic 101 education that we share with all of new employees to help them all understand how to properly mitigate risk inside of these projects. Some of it is technical process information, some of it is high-‐level theory on how to ensure ROI and project success.

Ultimately, everyone that reads this entire e-‐book will come away with a solid education around how to approach any kind of enterprise software project and mitigate the associated risks.

About Datix:

Datix has been designing enterprise software solutions for the last 17 years. In our infancy, Datix was a provider of custom enterprise software to one of the largest real estate firms in the United States. As we evolved, Datix began consulting with manufacturing and distribution businesses in the mid-‐market to assist in building out their enterprise software systems. That’s been our M.O. for the last 10 years. We’ve built partnerships with some of the most popular software used inside of these businesses, and have created a powerful reputation as an expert who understands how all these systems should work together. At Datix, we get it. We know enterprise software, and can visualize how it can work to support a wide range of different business objectives. We are innovative thought leaders that are constantly developing proprietary applications and solutions based on the challenges we see clients face the most. Businesses work with us when they want to mitigate risk, solve problems, and improve the way their business operates.


|Chapter 1: Innovate, Improve and Grow|

Ditch legacy software now, and grow. . .

The common tipping point

There is a common tipping point for all businesses; a point in which a business reaches a high degree of handcuffing that prevents them from improving the bottom line. It often leads to discussion around what new capabilities are needed and the common answer pings a new software system between some in the C-‐Suite.

Unfortunately, this common occurrence is much like going to the doctor after an illness has already caused critical damage to the body. Imagine you have a pain in your foot which spreads to your knee. You can still limp along, so you choose to ignore it. After several years, the pain spreads engulfs the entire leg, and simple steps become a challenge. Finally, the illness prevents lower body movement altogether. Then you seek medical attention to allay the problem. Most of us are likely to agree probing the issue early on would save time, money and further injury. The same can be said for ERP software. Too many businesses wait until their outdated legacy ERP software systems have crippled their operations until they seek help.

What businesses often uncover following an implementation of a new system, are a large number of inefficiencies and processes that had been costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Those costs – as small as they may be– are incremental and burden a business on a quarterly and annual basis.

The costs vs. the ROI

So how do these costs manifest? Sometimes it’s the software and sometimes it’s the processes. These two functions are the foundation supporting the business. When one part of the system is misused or fails to perform as expected, it often leads to pain points in separate utilities across the business.

Legacy ERP software yields dated process flow models, is painfully slow, is full of irrelevant data and bugs, and often leads to unplanned business instability. When replaced with a newer ERP system that has been planned and implemented around strategic business objectives, organizations can significantly reduce direct labor and overhead

Software is expensive and has a bad habit of waning convenience over time. Investing in software can become a vicious cycle, but businesses whom rely on outdated legacy ERP software systems often risk losing more than just project dollars.


costs. The amount of cost savings can be determined by evaluating the systems reduction in process time, revenue and resource efficiency, and much more. Each business is very different in this category.

Caution

If a business adopts a new system, but uses it to support old process, the net gain can be very minimal. This inevitably results in a vicious cycle of sunk costs over and over again. In the same way that businesses can achieve significant ROI using business process modeling, they can just as easily create sunk costs by failing to properly implement or align a new software investment to their business.

Thousands of businesses each year implement software systems and fail to conduct proper business process modeling prior to implementation. This causes the new system to support old processes; thus supporting the same inefficiencies. Ultimately, this means businesses could be doing all the work while achieving none of the benefits. The difference is business process modeling.

The bottom line…

The bottom line is this: Businesses of all shapes and sizes that are operating legacy ERP software systems will likely benefit, and save quite a bit of money, by conducting business process modeling and implementing (or upgrading) their current ERP system. Most businesses rarely see this opportunity until it has already cost them a significant amount of money. Others fail to ever benefit due to poor implementation and configuration practices. Businesses whom invest time into educating themselves about solutions and system evaluations could reap a generous ROI by ditching their outdated legacy systems and implementing powerful new systems and processes.

How will enterprise software generate ROI next year?

We’ve come to accept enterprise software as a fixed part of just about every business in one fashion or another. As an enterprise software consulting firm, we spend the majority of effort drilling deep into these adopted solutions to determine what each potential solution offers each potential user application.

Businesses don’t really need software — in fact, software is terrible investment — what businesses need is for technology to help them with their business processes, analytics and outcomes. But, how can businesses ever expect the software to generate ROI if the technology is constantly changing?


Businesses often focus on the solution before fundamentally understanding the premise of an issue when implementing or modifying enterprise software. The key to maximizing the ROI of your software project is to fully-‐ capture the business processes, use cases and business outcomes the software will help the organization achieve at the project’s inception. This lays the foundation for a ROI measurement platform and can help ensure the software creates a return for stakeholders. Nonetheless, it can all goes awry if planning is not strategic and dynamic in the beginning. Organizations must ensure that they lean on experts that understand business objectives and technical specifications to fully-‐accomplish this goal.

Asking the right questions

The idea behind any enterprise software project should begin with the premise of maximizing the ROI of the software. This means fundamentally returning to the pain-‐staking questions that spearheaded the project’s campaign before exploring any new ones. Things like; what are we trying to achieve with this software; what is our current system preventing us from doing; and how could this software project help us increase revenue and decrease costs – to name a few.

If the project up for consideration fails to addresses the proposed inquires above, one of two things is likely taking place:

1. The proposed enterprise software project offers little benefit to the organization and should not be pursued. 2. Those tasked with evaluating the project don’t have a collaborative view of how the technology and business

operations mesh.

If an organization believes it may be #2, it may be best to begin consulting outside experts to road map out how the software innovations could potentially improve the business. Closing the gap between technical developers and business operations people is the key to harnessing cooperation and buy-‐in on the project, in addition to determining the project’s feasibility and scope.


Changes that are going to generate revenue next year

We’re all familiar with the routine upgrades, added features and improved efficiencies software publishers rigorously release. Often times these latest versions and nuances reflect demands of business users to that of the vendor. Software investors may consider a latest version as a potential smaller project to implement these measures as a continuous improvement initiative. Yet, we often find businesses wait until they view a project can significantly impact the bottom line before they make any project arrangements or process improvements. Unfortunately, this usually only occurs after multiple components of an ERP, CRM or other areas of the ecosystem become outdated or disparate.

The wait until the last minute approach may seem like a best way to extract value from the software you currently have, however, it actually minimizes it. An enterprise software project that drives more efficient, time-‐saving and innovative business outcomes can have a major impact on revenue; thus increasing the cost payback of the software. Utilizing an inefficient system leaves money on the table. The best way to ensure that your enterprise software is generating ROI in the future is to invest in continuous improvement procedures that allow you to identify when aspects of the software may be holding the business back.

The future…

If a business has current plans to venture into the cloud, explore machine learning, invest in IoT or implement business intelligence software, it may be worth evaluating how a latest version software will support those plans. Preparing software, and aligning the system and its data for those future projects now, could be one of the most effective ways to ensure ROI on those coming projects.


| Chapter 2: Processes over Software | Investing in processes, not software

Why would a leading software consulting firm say enterprise technology should be considered a poor financial investment? Because unfortunately, it’s true. Management software itself —in 21st century business—is a poor investment. So, what’s a business to do? There’s no running back to file cabinets and spreadsheets. So how do investors get the most out of management software? Likewise, how does the investment not fail to become sunk cost to the business?

Why buying management software is like buying a car… on steroids

Think about it. Buying management software is a lot like buying a new car. The moment you drive it off the lot it depreciates in value. Only a few short years later, the car is worth a fraction of the initial investment. What’s more, the car has maintenance costs associated with it during that time. If you do a poor job of taking care of it, guess what? The car is going to become a regular expense; costing you more and more opportunity dollars each month.

Assuming it’s been maintained well, the car is due for an upgrade after 4-‐7 years (U.S. average). The vehicle that is worth roughly 20% of its original value to date. Yet how would one have maintained a normal life and schedule without the car; so there has been a valuable return received for the purchase. The key for most of us is how we leverage the costs associated with benefits we receive from the vehicle. Software is very similar, but poses even greater risks to the buyer.

Following the purchase of software, not only does it depreciate immediately, it essentially becomes worthless once it’s installed/implemented by an organization. If the software is a hardcopy and on premise, it’s essentially not worth anything to anyone once installed (who will want to refurbish a custom legacy system in 5 years?). Likewise, if software is cloud-‐based, it’s like buying zilch. You merely have access to the software and certainly cannot resell it. You also maintain the risk and responsibility of ownership, regardless of either selection. Similar to the opening caveat, when one fails to perform preventive maintenance on the vehicle, it will betray you at some point; inevitably forcing an investment of more valuable resources to get the system to properly function and


provide access to key users. On top of everything else, it’s extremely likely — given the progression of technology, supply chains, production, logistics, etc. — software will needs replacing or upgraded within the next 5-‐7 years. So you have to ask yourself the question, what am I getting for my money? Because, software is inherently a terrible investment.

Blinded by features

As a top management software consulting firm, we see thousands of different reasons why businesses are evaluating new systems, processes and software. Some reasons are well planned for and purposeful, while others are poorly thought out. The difference is the initial premise from which they derive their desire to engage in a new management software project.

Businesses that approach new management software projects considering how they can support, improve or manage new or existing processes, are typically on the right track. This type of intellect enables the business to clarify how the software will empower an organization to accomplish goals, eliminate waste and achieve business outcomes in a well-‐ rounded manner. Organizations should build a strategy around these plans. Likewise, executive leaders must measure their success based on how accountable they hold their project committee on the achievement of such deliverables.

By the same token, businesses whom consider the softer benefits of software rather than something more concrete, such as work flow fit, typically experience difficulty achieving their desired ROI. For example, if a business is considering Salesforce or Dynamics CRM, they should first think through how these software systems could help their business delve effective processes and objectives. Instead organizations are blinded by superior marketed benefits from leading management software vendors and believe by implementing these systems it will somehow achieve a desired effect out of the box. This type of thinking often leads to poor implementation practices, undefined ROI measurements and abysmal organizational adoption.

Determining how your organization will achieve ROI with the software is a start to controlling an investment. As cliché’ as this may be, it is often not a primary consideration and many companies fall lame to an undesirable statistic. Planning how the software can be used to improve the organization – in and out, up and down -‐ is the correct notion to better the chances of project success and retention of ROI.

What if the management software up for consideration is a first time implementation for the IT group in your organization? What if a project of this type is a first for many of your team members? The new management software


is replacing some instance of a legacy system. Simply using software to take the place of spreadsheets, while the organization changes little in the way of process – or user adoption – makes little headway for ROI and is associated with a range of high-‐level risks.

How to save money

Businesses implement new systems every day to enable themselves to become more competitive, less wasteful and highly productive. The same management software once expensive and difficult can transform laggard business process into industry leading best practice. Quite simply, the approach you should take with management software should focus more on the deliverance of the process and less on the software itself.

ERP and CRM implementation projects are no easy task, and as we often mention, rarely a do-‐it-‐yourself project. Infrastructure projects of this type run deep with contingency and bare a better known rate of failure. In fact, a 2015 ERP report revealed 21 percent of companies reported their ERP project was a failure, which was an increase of 5 percent from 2014. Thus, it appears the approach to a majority of projects is often largely misguided.

ERP and CRM implementations are a massive undertaking for the majority of businesses. It takes a high degree of business strategy, unremitting focus, and above all else, guided by a proven methodology. It is certainly possible for a firm to produce a deliverable that documents its own business processes, however, internalizing implementation projects can cause sudden major hiccups. Companies tend to have certain blind spots in their business that can lead to incomplete or myopic results. We strongly recommend sourcing a partner with real industry experience and a proven methodology to dish perspective in areas of an implementation the majority of internal teams undoubtedly miss.

Expert consulters here at Datix find including a deliverable that the project team define “use cases” of the system is one proven instance of how a business can overcome the gaps in their system. Use cases are documents that detail the interactions between actors—humans or other business software—and the new system.

Use cases

Use cases act as business modeling techniques that define the features of an ERP or CRM implementation. More importantly, uses cases provide a resolution if any errors are encountered by a user.

Use cases conceptualize objectives of the project. Generally the internal project team is tasked with establishing those objectives. In doing so, use cases allow the client to verify the details of a project. This is also a time when the implementation partner can level up additional requirements uncovered during the planning stage and discuss if change orders will be required.

Use cases motivate business users at the executive level to become more involved in the project. Executives do not necessarily help create use cases, however are responsible for their review and approval. The opportunity allows these power users to make sure the project team communicated business processes effectively.


Used as a reference tool

This is arguably number one and is a fundamental element of the Datix methodology. A project manager should attribute use cases to a catalog at the conclusion of a project. Because BPMs detail the pre-‐conditions for an event, a business user has fully visibility of the process from end to end. You may have seen this concept before on a road map. Essentially, it is a reference tool for power users to understand the continuity of their system, use it for its intended purposes and avoid personalizing processes later that add no value to the business.

Decreases Chance for Risks, Improves Expectations

Perhaps a more fundamental reason for assembling use cases is to eliminate uncertainties and improve expectations. Use cases aim to improve the usefulness of a system from a very high level to the finite needs of a silo. Use cases must be approved by everyone involved in the project to be certain expectations are the same internally as they are for the implementation partner.

Ensures Project Stays Within Scope

Use cases allow project teams to better manage the scope of project. At Datix, we assist clients with our signature prioritization process. In a nut shell, the prioritization process pushes users determine which use cases are critical to jobs and which are luxuries of a system. The process recurs throughout the project to ensure the most critical needs of the system are met first. Team leaders can then budget for resources for secondary needs based on their assessment.

The Use Case Catalog is a Living Document

Sourcing alternations in the system is critical since those new elements will merge into a foundation that supports the unique parts of your business model. System administrators will certainly need to review how a process works now and again. To do so, they’ll need to source the use case catalog. It is a living document that can be modified later as system improvements happen. It is a more effective way for our clients to see how something works, what they can expect from those processes and how a transaction in the system can be improved using the best practice.


Gives Technical and Functional Requirements

Uses cases conceptualize the functionality within the system. Each use case describes its own configuration and intended purpose. For example, your company may provide services in separate geographic locations and require a separate system to manage and track engagement in those areas. A use case should detail the technical requirements of what it will take—systematically—to display the system in a multi-‐language format and accept different currency. Functional requirements of the interaction show the ability or result of the system given the use case technical requirements; for example, the ability to assign various site displays based on language or currency selection.

Rarely do we see clients completely certain of their project goals. They simply don’t know what they don’t know; and why sourcing a proven methodology is highly recommended. As use cases are assembled, goals change. Businesses do not have time to manage the intricacies of their software themselves simply because their running a business. Their reluctance blinds them from understanding what is truly holding them back from growth.

Use Cases Foster Communication

Fundamentally, use cases are communication tools. The contents of a use case outlines the reason for the functionality, who or what will be using it, the preconditions for the process (actionable items of the client) requirements of the process and rules of the process. Essentially, use case reviews provide great visibility into the breakdown of work and can be utilized by project team as a platform to voice any additional needs they may have; ultimately optimizing efficiency, costs, and project communication and transparency.

Modern best practices for CRM and ERP implementation New versions of enterprise software are appearing on the market sooner than ever before; all thanks to cloud technology. In light of this, more and more businesses are heavily investing in a CRM or ERP implementation in the coming years. However, there is a caution that comes along with this. According to Gartner – a leading provider of technology research – nearly half of implementation projects are not meeting user expectations after the system has gone live. Gartner further reveals business leaders of organizations where this unsatisfactory reception of the system occurs claim these costly projects as failures.

As mentioned in an earlier section, ERP and CRM implementation failure rates are on the rise. One reason is the flexibility of latest version ERP systems and best of breed software induces a number of customizations within the


system. Many times those manipulations of the system can lead users to believe the system will perform exactly as promised. Yet, this is rarely the case. Systems must be configured to support the things that are meaningful to your business. They do not simply come out of the box this way.

Quite simply, think of it this way…

For those involved in business operations, have you ever asked IT to modify or create a new report and it did not display as you expected? For those in IT, have you ever been asked to create something, and after it was delivered the user expressed it was not was they intended to have, knowing that to the best of your knowledge it’s exactly what they asked for?

The scenario is a common formality often experienced among business users. Generally, business operations personnel do not possess enough technical knowledge to provide IT with enough adequate information. Likewise, IT does not have enough knowledge about the business issue to ask all the right questions. Organizations often rush into thinking they know exactly what kind of new enterprise software system they need, and what they need from it, only to find that once it’s implemented that it doesn’t accomplish many of the things that it was originally intended to provide. This is often revered as the traditional approach to CRM and ERP implementation and remains a pitfall inside organizations today.

Understand business processes at the beginning of a project

A CRM and ERP implementation is comparable to that of a building construction project. Initially, we would draw up the blueprints to ensure builders and commissioners are on the same page, and have documentation they can use to preview exactly how the final product will look. Next, it is imperative to guarantee there is a solid foundation to build upon. If the foundation does not exist, the entire project will be full of contingency. Our Datix Strategic Solutions process reflects this methodical approach to software implementation. Our process is designed to mitigate risk at each event; providing transparency and direct communication between investors and project resources. This kind of detail, control and sure-‐handedness helps to ensure that every ounce of ROI is milked out of the software; whilst allowing project steering committees the flexibility to manage scope and budget the whole time.


Managing User Adoption

Similar to moving into a new home, shifting from a legacy system to a new software instance can take some adjusting. It is natural for there to be difficulty when things change inside of an organization; however having a universal revolt of a new system is equally risky to an implementation project.

Traditionally, project managers advise business users of the change just prior to a system going live. Unfortunately, this can take users by surprise and the sudden change shifts the dynamics of the organization in the wrong direction. Managing change within the organization is especially critical for system adoption and success. The best way to avoid this type of instability, is to integrate a user onboarding process at the beginning of the implementation project. This allows the project to drive new initiatives for the business and keep business users motivated to see each one through. We strongly recommend discussing end user training and systems development strategy to add to the list of project deliverables. This gives users the experience they need to perform responsibilities in the system sooner with less cost to the business.

Going back to the beginning we talked about how critical it is for blueprints to be drawn and foundations to be laid before a brick is ever laid. To ensure business outcomes and technology investments align, companies must ensure that both the system builders and the business operations teams are on the same page before construction ever starts. Having a process that mitigates risk at every stage of implementation, and provides transparency and control throughout the project enables that to occur.

|Chapter 3: The Connected Enterprise | Building Business Continuity and Transparency Solutions

A connected enterprise will unlock business growth

A desire to better understand how to manage ever-‐changing data is a conventional dilemma for the majority of businesses today. All industries are in search of a way to turn business data into something more suggestive and easier to absorb. As our anchor deepens in the trenches of big data, standalone business software is failing to capture the significance of business data we have come to expect it to. Yet as more businesses shift software to perform in the cloud, an emerging trend is seemingly more complacent among these first adopters. It is proven approach to both data management and wholesome reporting. Enter the age of a connected enterprise.


At the forefront of modern business projects the vision of a connected enterprise leads the way. It is an idea that summarizes the practice of integrating digital systems (usually software) into a single data hub that can provide the organization with a universal source of data truth. Ideally, integrated software is the cornerstone of qualifying and quantifying data from every department into a single mix. Having a connected enterprise allows business to strategically save time, money, mitigate risk and uncover new opportunities.

Unfortunately, with non-‐connected investments in various enterprise software, many businesses do not feel a connected enterprise is achievable today. Yet, without implementing a shared data solution into the business, resources and capacity will inevitably go underutilized and capital spending will be most times, wasteful.

Why an integrated enterprise makes business data more manageable

Modern customers require a rapid response from suppliers and vendors — even if they don’t know it yet — and that expectation is growing. Software integration enables the enterprise to provide an end to end solution for its buyer without manual processes, dual-‐data-‐entry, etc.

By connecting E-‐commerce, CRM, BI and an enterprise suite, the margin for lead time can be significantly lessened. This actually makes everything far more simple and easy, not to mention better for the business. Essentially, integration exists as a green light to data in order for it to sync across systems. This in turn enables the business to drive a singular uninterrupted flow of information throughout into operations.


Adopting an integrated data model empowers users with a 360 degree view of the business, regardless of their particular silo. When data is ported into ERP, it should instantly mirror the same data in CRM. Likewise, when BI tools encounter correlation between sales and production, business managers can expect to see this instance in each software tool used the organization.

Depending on the unique processes of your business, data can be queried from multiple entry points and posted in a simple format to custom reporting dashboards. Data will continue to grow organically inside each of these separate software systems. This will instill more complexity throughout the business process and convoluting a business user’s ability to make profitable decisions. However, the connected enterprise is masterfully solving these hard wired issues hidden deep inside business ecosystems, ridding the many nuisances caused by poor data management and separate legacy business software.

Integration and the “hybrid system”

A growing number of data management models are supported by a “hybrid system.” These systems consist of complex, on-‐premises back office ERP software separate from agile (usually web-‐based) front office applications. Unless these machines transfer data back and forth, they are useless for business application. A connected enterprise always makes the most sense for these setups. To truly support operations, all hybrid systems must be integrated. Integrating software allows the digital ecosystem to work in tandem with business processes. What good is software if it doesn’t support the process from end to end? Isn’t that the reason it exists?

A Connected Enterprise Can Drive Better Quality Data

Enterprise interconnectivity pushes a firm to improve the quality of its data. For most businesses, data quality/integrity is an issue. Generally, we find that a business’s historical data will be unclean and incompatible with modern software. Systems should be free of irrelevant data and duplicate entries, as these only create risk and bogs down processes. The best way to ensure that data remains purposeful, and is not duplicated or irrelevant, is to sync it across


departments. Each piece of data is best managed by the users tasked with its greatest level of importance; and is truly the best practice for database management.

During this process, we look to executive leadership to identify only the most pertinent data to be synced among users. This is also a time to determine how this key information will be captured, stored and repurposed from their on forward. This lessons the chance for contingency throughout the integration.

Without software integration, latent mistakes generally occur across multiple departments. These incremental mistakes are side effects of an absent data visibility solution and failure to communicate such a need in the last implementation project. Ultimately, it has cost multiple departments valuable man hours, projects to fall behind and businesses to miss out on big time opportunities.

It is not the cost, but the ROI of the project that really matters. ROI is actually very simple to demonstrate on connected enterprise project plans. Businesses can usually account for time inside of processes and the time that it takes employees to execute certain tasks. By measuring and analyzing these factors (among others) businesses can usually demonstrate project ROI extremely quickly.

Not everyone in your company will buy into the idea of a connected enterprise. Some may believe this project is a waste of time and insist on not fixing what “already works.” The truth is, most users aren’t technical and don’t understand how their current processes could be holding the business back. It often takes a third party integration team to uncover what processes are in place and train users from an unbiased perspective on why integration supports them. It is these users who will make or break an integration project.

How do we build a connected enterprise?

At high level, executive sponsors will need to share the connected enterprise model with the implementation team. This phase of the project prompts stakeholders to drill down into processes to create use cases for the newly integrated system. From here, business leaders reveal which data is required for the process and which data is unnecessary going forward. This can be a tedious procedure depending the systems you’re currently working on and what systems you plan to integrate. Designate project leaders to prioritize which data needs to move from those systems and how:

-‐ Bi-‐directionally? -‐ Read Only? -‐ And how often does data need to be refreshed?

Knowing what you know now, a software integration can occur in as little as three weeks.

How will the connected enterprise work?

A successful connected enterprise should work as a single source of truth and induce a more transparent and data driven culture. All departments are operating using singular data and the data is managed by only those tasked with keeping up to date and in quality condition. This may be an internal team of administrators, or monitored strategically by a second party. Regardless, integrity of data is held to a single view, is rendered current and is readily


available with a few seconds. Overall, connected enterprise systems embolden greater expediency, data clarity and candidness.

Maximizing Profitability with Integrated CRM and ERP

CRM is an essential ingredient for business management, according to the Aberdeen study, Making the Most of Your CRM: How Best-‐in-‐Class Sales Teams Maximize Revenue and Customer Experience. Proper use of a well-‐ maintained and integrated CRM will result in:

-‐ 12% increase in Customer Retention -‐ 26% Increase in Quota Attainment -‐ 25% Increase in Reps Achieving Quota -‐ 20% Increase in Revenue**

Source: Gartner Research December 2012/ Aberdeen Study June 2013

The Case for Integration

Integration of your CRM and ERP systems permits users to get complete front-‐to-‐back-‐end office visibility. Here are a few reasons mentioned in the presentation:

-‐ Faster and easier access to customer data -‐ Front and back office suites talking together -‐ Sales is notified of potential customer issues (RMAs, Cases). -‐ Get a single source of the truth -‐ Eliminate double entry

Mobility in CRM

Mobility is trending this year and our sales teams want access to data instantaneously. “Users are more likely to enter data and use a system that they own,” Sapot said. “This ultimately saves the company money by not purchasing additional equipment.”

What’s happening with real-‐time mobile access?

-‐ Mobile for ERP still evolving -‐ Mobile for CRM relatively mature -‐ Younger employees expect mobile -‐ Mobile increases user adoption

Examples:

-‐ Access to current inventory levels


-‐ Access to customer order history -‐ Place orders in the field -‐ Order status

Accountability for Sales Departments

CRM houses data from engagements, leads and opportunities. Sales orders, invoices and shipments live in ERP. Having actual sales in CRM allows sales managers to measure performance and determine long-‐range forecasts.

Happier Sales People

Eliminating another login and having all your sales data in one place makes it easier for your busy sales team.

-‐ Access to all customer information one location -‐ For CRM and ERP users accessing the same information -‐ Customer Service has access to sales interactions -‐ Sales has access to customer service and financial interactions.

What to Consider when planning an integration

Before jumping into an integration project Bryan recommends surveying a few key considerations:

ü Define Guiding Principles ü Should users work in both systems? ü Master system for each data type ü Phased Approach ü Accounts, Contacts, Activities ü Orders, Shipments & RMAs ü Financial Data ü CRM is not ERP

CRM and ERP integration accelerate go live time

How will CRM and ERP Integration improve my go live time? Let’s say you have two systems, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Epicor ERP. You now have both back and front end data synchronization between the two systems. When you integrate your CRM and ERP systems you will quickly see the benefits of data-‐access and time saving measures for your employees.

Integration will help you:

-‐ Provide top notch customer service with a more personalized customer experience -‐ Eliminate manual data entry of customer data between the two systems -‐ Deliver fast access to financial data -‐ Safely transfer encrypted data -‐ Control the type of access each employee has to relevant information -‐ The goal is to have your business processes streamlined and automated.


This means you will be able to support quote-‐to-‐order between CRM and ERP. You can link ecommerce to your customer CRM systems and provide billing information to CRM. If you have product catalogs you can also sync those between both systems effectively, as well.

The most successful ERP’s integrate with other systems

| Conclusion | Your final enterprise software ecosystem greatly depends on how much influence your business has on its end operation and use. We find in our implementations that the most important thing we do is empowering the client to take full ownership of the system. In fact, if there’s anything you should take away from this e-‐book, it’s that organizations that deeply consider their desired business outcomes, necessary processes, and key metrics will be the ones that are most likely headed towards a successful implementation.

Taking ownership system extends beyond simply planning your project. It deals with how an organization handles change, and continually improves and develops their system and processes.

Just like almost everything in business. Organizations will get out what they put in to these projects, and since enterprise software is playing a more critical role in business growth every year, companies would be wise to dedicate significant resources and time towards ensuring their system is constructed properly. A poorly configured system, or outdated system, can cost companies more than just revenue. Taking a hardline serious approach to how these projects are managed is critical.

At the end of the day, mitigating risk enterprise project risk is not overly complex. It simply requires dedication and organizational concentration. Most issues we see are directly related to a lack of focus, or a haphazard approach to implementation. By equipping yourself with the information above, your organization should be well positioned to maximize the software investments that your company chooses to make.

As a firm that specializes in helping businesses optimize processes to produce dynamic and innovative professional outcomes, we have exposure to a lot of great ideas and projects enterprises are interested in implementing. There are few technology implementations that provide more value or produce greater results to businesses than integrating enterprise software. More specifically, it’s what — or how — businesses choose to integrate their ERP with other systems that really seems to transform processes, save time and produce the greatest ROI.

So what are some of the most successful types of ERP integration that we see? Primarily, it’s the projects that start with the end in mind. There is usually a process or way that a company does business that is either cumbersome or costly. With the right amount of ingenuity these challenges can almost always be overcome. What we often see is that businesses have trouble recognizing what processes are really slowing them down, and what solutions might be available to them to solve these issues. Below we’ve compiled our top 3 ERP innovations that have proven to save companies time and money.


| More Information |

The Datix blog is filled with valuable information like this. We encourage you to visit it regularly. However, if you have real questions and concerns about a

project it may be best to consult with one of our experts with over 18 years of industry experience. Datix is that expert, and we invite you to connect with us

regarding your next software project.

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The Ultimate ERP & CRM Implementation Plan E-Book · The Ultimate CRM and ERP Implementation Plan...

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