Two of the most important types of tools technology can offer to businesses include CRMs like Salesforce and ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning).
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a platform for handling all your company’s communication and relationships with clients and future clients. In a nutshell: a CRM system strengthens business ties, increases client connectivity, streamlines operations, and boosts profitability.
On the other hand, an ERP is software that contains applications that automate production, accounting, sales quoting, and more. Both tools don’t need to operate independently. They can work together.
In this article, we’ll show you why ERP integration is key to running a successful business.
You can have your current Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution integrated into Salesforce
Once companies have implemented Salesforce to take advantage of all features a CRM platform like that can offer, they might also wish to integrate Salesforce with their current ERP application.
This is completely possible. An ERP application can either be integrated with Salesforce or bring it into Salesforce itself. But why choose Salesforce integration with ERPs in the first place? Because it will ensure a single source of truth for all your company’s data. The more places there are to store data, the more chances to end up with inconsistent information between different systems. This will also hinder the proper maintenance of data.
The bigger your company becomes and the more sophisticated your tech systems become, the more likely it is that inaccurate data and sloppy workarounds will become part of your day-to-day operation.
If your company uses ERPs and you are thinking about implementing Salesforce or already have it implemented but don’t know the real advantages of integrating ERPs with Salesforce, keep reading.
Advantage #1: Consistency in Data Updates and Changes
This is a huge advantage. We know that a whole lot of information on everything from your customers to your business is stored on both CRMs and ERPs. This includes data like customer information, business resources (cash, materials, production capacity), payroll, orders, and countless others. This data is regularly being updated, changed, or adjusted.
Imagine updating all that changing information manually within each tool. Not only will it take a long time but also increases the chance of errors and discrepancies.
Instead of trying to update them separately to make sure everything is correct, why not integrate the two to allow for rapid and accurate updates? Having one single source of truth will optimize the resources and processes of your company. In short, the data will be completely synchronized.
Advantage #2: Customer Service Enhancement
Let’s suppose you have data in various and different systems. If a customer contacts support, your support team will have to search within those multiple systems for answers. Not only this will slow down the workflow but it might hurt the whole customer experience that your company has already built. As we all know, speedy and accurate communication is the best customer service.
Moreover, what if your employees simply forget to update data in those various systems and mislead your customers by providing inaccurate pricing or promising quick delivery of out-of-stock products? This can all be avoided by having just one integrated platform.
If there is a Salesforce and ERP integration, customer support reps would have all the required details to answer all questions to customers and also will avoid forwarding someone to another department or individual to get the right answer or request. It is a win-win for everyone involved.
Uniting multiple systems will make them find what they need with more efficiency, accuracy, and speed. This will all result in helping your organization build and maintain strong relationships with customers. A great customer experience should be one of the key priorities as a business.
Advantage #3: Better Sales
Do you know that up to 50 percent of sales go to the first-responding vendor? For instance, if you have products and their prices stored in ERPs, your sales reps will need this data in Salesforce to build comprehensive opportunities to supply consumers with the correct pricing.
Providing potential customers with what they need in a fast manner will help your business gain a new customer.
If there is no integration between Salesforce and ERPs, manual updates of product lists and prices will turn into a nightmare for your staff. This is especially true in the case your company produces an impressive number of goods or has constant variations in price rates.
Advantage #4: Increased visibility of data
Imagine having to ask someone to do something or to verify something instead of doing it yourself. It will be a big waste. Sadly, for many different businesses, this is the way it operates. Accessing important information would involve either a lot of searching or waiting for an answer from a colleague in another department.
When running a business, efficiency is key. A Salesforce integration with ERPs will result in different departments of the company being able to see the same data, allowing the different teams to collaborate better and make faster, smarter, and more informed decisions.
There will be better account management because a sales rep can see all the operational information in their system. Additionally, there will be improved cross-sell and upsell, and subsequently better customer experience.
Whether there is a sales rep who wants to know about shipping or inventory, or a back-office associate who needs to know about customer information or leads, they will have the right information they need at their fingertips.
Advantage #5: Automated data management tasks
Many daily tasks can be automated by a CRM alone. Add an ERP integration to the solution, and even more, can be automated.
Copy/paste tasks can be eliminated altogether, reducing duplication of effort, increasing data accuracy, and enabling better utilization of resources. Efficiency and productivity are increased as it allows your staff to focus on what they do best while the integrated system takes care of the tiresome stuff.
Automation workflows can be achieved without coding so no need to request programming to set them up. Anybody could create processes, move data, and automate data manipulation.
A Final Word
In this article, we stated 5 advantages of Salesforce and ERP integration for your business. However, this can be much more dependent on your business type.
One of the keys to a successful ERP integration is to provide the solution quickly so that later you’re being able to scale. Develop your initial ERP integration with the least amount of functionality required to prove its effectiveness to stakeholders. Then add features after testing and feedback from users. Creating a short-term value with a low-risk profile will set you up for success when you tackle the full integration.
Salesforce is essential for sales activities and customer contact information. The ERP is the master of everything that has to do with product information and customer payment. With both of them working together, everyone will know what is going on with every customer and order.
