With so many CRM and Sales Force Automation (SFA) software packages available today, it can be a daunting task to figure out which one is right for your distribution business.
Whether you and your company are brand new to CRM or you’re an experienced user who is unsatisfied with your current product, this guide will help you during your selection and review process. It will cover six important areas to consider when looking at CRM providers and supplies questions to ask when interviewing or reviewing different CRM offerings, in order to ensure that you select the right CRM for distributors and the distribution industry.
Today we will review the 2nd area to consider when selecting a CRM solution.
Area 2: ERP Integration
What’s the importance of a CRM with ERP integration, and how can I ensure that the CRM provides the ERP data that my sales and marketing teams need?
In the most basic sense, a CRM is a database to store Accounts and Contacts. Almost all CRM systems provide a simple method to log new Accounts and new Contacts to this database. In addition, most provide various forms of Opportunity or Pipeline Management tools.
In order to be successful, salespeople and sales managers at distribution companies need more than basic Account and Contact data about their customers. What they really need is to be able to look at an Account or Contact record and also have the ability to see up to date customer sales and margin data by territory, account, product group, order number, and line item. This allows distributors to effectively pursue new business where they are not currently getting it and to drive up margins where they are currently below acceptable levels. Without being able to easily view and analyze your sales data tied to your customer records, it can be challenging and time intensive for your sales and sales management teams to effectively drive new business or uncover new opportunities within your existing customer base.
Many CRM companies claim to be able to integrate to your ERP system. Unfortunately, each CRM company’s definition of ERP Integration is different. When reviewing the CRM offerings of different companies, it’s important to choose a CRM company that has experience integrating to your ERP system in order to get the highest ROI from your CRM investment.
CRM Interview – Ask these questions to determine the ability of the CRM system to integrate to your ERP system, as well as the types of data they are able to import from the ERP system:
- Does the CRM system have an existing interface to my ERP system, or will custom software need to be written by a software integrator?
- If custom software is necessary to integrate to my ERP system, what does that entail? What will level of involvement will be required of my company?
- How much time will it take to build a custom integrator, and how much money will it cost?
- Will data from the ERP system be available on mobile devices for our sales team to be able to access at any time?
- Does the CRM system have a history of direct integration with a number of ERP systems including my particular ERP system?
- Will our salespeople be able to see sales data such as Sales, Gross Margins, Gross Margin % and Bookings YTD by:
- Sales Territory?
- By Customer?
- By Vendor?
- By Vendor Product Group?
- By individual order to the line Item Level?
- Past year and Past Two Years?
- Actual sales performance versus YTD goal?
Download the full Guide to Selecting a CRM for your Distribution Business.