Integrating ERP can overcome CRM limits

Software Magazine, Spring, 2002 by Alan Robert Earls

Puett said his specific requirements--and his determination to avoid software companies that "couldn't really deliver"--led him to Siebel with its wide range of modules designed for various vertical industries, including financial services. "We looked at some other vendors but what they offered were more like tool kits and would have required extensive configuration and still might not easily integrate with our legacy systems," Puett said. Puett was also pleased that Siebel provided plenty of "executive information system functionality" and predefined reports right out of the box. His legacy systems were primarily built around a Symitar product, which fortunately had an interface that could readily accommodate queries from external systems. The Meriwest team, including about five people, and a slightly larger Inforte team were very much under the gun to deliver as quickly as possible and worked intensively on the project for about three months, Puett recalls. The original needs documentation and careful requi rements planning also helped ensure the project's success, he said. For example, in most cases, his team avoided attempting to provide real-time data because it would have vastly complicated the project and added little value. "If someone needs checking account data in real time we can drill down and get it but the bulk of the updating goes through a nightly batch job," he said. The integration also made use of an additional HTTP-based EAI product, he said.

Puett said he never attempted to devise an ROI calculated in dollars, but wanted instead to demonstrate that the project could build brand equity--in the form of customer satisfaction. Some of the project's results are measurable. They include an eight percent drop in the duration of service calls, an 11 percent increase in time spent on selling and a 17 percent drop in calls needing to be transferred.

Marcel Dekker Ties Web to Print Publishing Models

Of course, Siebel isn't part of every CRM-ERP integration scheme. Take the example of Marcel Dekker, a 40-year-old global publisher of scientific, technical and medical information, with facilities in New York City and Switzerland. The company was looking for new ways to offer product to customers 24/7, whether purchasing printed material or accessing electronic content. ERP and CRM integration was needed to ensure that customers who access material on the Web, as well as through subscription and traditional print models, were handled appropriately with all the correct pricing and licensing information.

To handle its front- and back-office systems, Dekker adopted New Jersey-based Global Turnkey Systems' UNISON 6 environment comprised of an IBM RS6000 F80 running IBM's AIX UNIX and Oracle 8. By using a server-based computing model--including GT Systems server-based ERP application for the publishing industry and GraphOn Corporation's GO-Global Web-enabling software--Marcel Dekker could let remote customer service offices use the same applications and data on standard Windows PCs.