Most businesses rely on two solutions to keep them running efficiently: a Client Relationship Management (CRM) system and an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. One of the most popular CRM solutions out there is Salesforce, and for a very good reason. Salesforce deals with all of your front-end information and helps manage customer data. It supports sales management to better understand prospects and clients, manage those relationships, and keep an eye on your sales pipeline.
But integrating Salesforce and your ERP solution can make an already amazing platform even better. Why? Because when you give Salesforce access to all of the back-end information handled by your ERP—accounting, project management, procurement, etc.—you improve the effectiveness of both systems. (It’s like peanut butter and jelly. Or peanut butter and chocolate. Or peanut butter and anything, really…)
Read on for the top five benefits of integrating Salesforce and your ERP.
1) Single Source of Truth
Integrating the Salesforce CRM solution with your ERP platform synchronizes the data between both systems to give you a single source of truth. Here’s an example. When you enter a new customer in Salesforce, that customer’s information gets fed to your ERP as well. It then shows up in financials, invoicing, and performance management reports, all without your having to enter that information into each separate system. And once a sale is entered into Salesforce, that automatically creates an invoice in your ERP system. It’s like magic!
2) Accessible Anytime, Anywhere
Salesforce CRM offers mobile access (which can be tough to find, depending on your ERP system), giving your sales team access to customer information on any device. Improved accessibility means greater flexibility when it comes to taking advantage of different opportunities, like during a customer meeting. A sales rep needs to engage a customer in conversation? No problem—they can whip up some dashboards or historical data, right from their mobile device.
3) Improved Information Accuracy
We all know that manual data entry can lead to mistakes (even when using copy and paste), and when you’re using two systems to enter the same data, errors are even more likely to happen. Even worse, when those mistakes occur in multiple places, it can take a lot of time and effort to correct that information. Integrating Salesforce and your ERP will help eliminate data duplication, improving data hygiene and saving your team from potential headaches.
4) Better Internal Communication
An integrated system helps to improve communication across the company by keeping data from getting squirreled away in separate siloes. Let’s say that your sales team really only works in Salesforce, for example, while finance lives in ERP. In a separated scenario, each team may have information that’s vital to the other, but getting it to the right person can require a lot of back-and-forth emails. But when those two systems communicate and share data, information becomes available to everyone. So if Sam the Sales Rep needs some info, they can just look it up themselves rather than emailing Finance and waiting for a reply (or vice versa).
5) Increased Sales
And finally, the most important reason to integrate: increasing your bottom line. With improved data quality, visibility, and accuracy, your sales team will have the best information on what’s going on in the sales pipeline. Better information results in more valuable selling, driving more sales.
How to Integrate Salesforce with Your ERP
These are just a few of the many benefits you’ll experience from integrating Salesforce and your ERP system. With data flowing between both platforms, your sales, finance, and customer service teams will be able to make smarter decisions that benefit your bottom line.
Of course, an integration project like this one requires expertise and skills that you may not have on staff. Luckily for you, Surety Systems can help. Our senior-level Salesforce consulting team not only has plenty of experience with your CRM, but also with a variety of ERP systems (including SAP) that you might be integrating with.
Contact our team today to learn more.
