using crm and erp data to manage a sales team effectively

Using CRM and ERP data to manage a sales team

effectively

What is CRM?CRM is an abbreviation for customer relationship

management and is a phrase used to describe all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service-related.

What Prospective deals will be

closed in the next

few months

The Value of the sale

Probability of the

sale taking place

Customer behavior informati

on

Order Information and status.

CRM data is where you will find:

Sales Prospects Data

Often all information about meetings and calls is also recorded in the system. Allowing multiple people working on an account to know the exact status of the account. And allowing sales managers to better manage their team.

What is ERP?ERP is the heart of a company. It controls all processes, finances, and stock control. Generally used by the finance team, and logistics teams.

Integrates all

facets of an

operation

Product planning, development and processe

d

Human resources

costs

Financial information on the

actual value of the sale

Sales and marketin

g informati

on.

ERP data is where you will find:

Sales Actuals Data

ERP is an abbreviation for enterprise resource planning. ERP software is used to manage the business. It integrates all facets of an operation, including product planning, development, manufacturing processes, human resources, financials and sales and marketing.

Today's ERP solutions are designed to help you to improve the operational efficiency of business resources. Businesses use ERP systems to integrate all its business processes into a single system to efficiently and effectively manage business goals.

So why would using CRM and ERP systems data help you manage sales teams more effectively?

The reason being – just because CRM systems say an order of a certain value was placed – it does not mean that it actually ended up occurring.

The order may have changed, the parts may have changed, the discount given may have been too large and so the deal is actually running at a loss.

All of this kind of information would be in the ERP system. (Alignment between sales forecast and sales actuals)

Indicates an order

of a certain

value has been

placed

Provides a sales forecast

for future sales in

the pipeline

CRM VS ERP

Actual value of

the orders

placed is captured

Provides the final value of the deal closed,

including discounts, actual costs

CRM System ERP System

So while the sales person is being celebrated as a hero for closing the most amounts of deals or the highest value of the quarter – this may not actually be the case.

The above is not news to sales management – after all it does not take a rocket scientist to realise this.

As a result – data from CRM is often exported into

Excel, and data is exported from the ERP and it usually becomes the responsibility of a sales administrator (who would usually be doing revenue generating work of processing orders) to merge the two sets of data into something understandable.

This is a manual process and month on month there are small mistakes that lead to inconsistency, wrong commissions being paid, wrong people being performance managed, wrong inventory being ordered. Also – things grind to a holt when that person responsible for this spreadsheet goes on leave.

The answer is to automate this..

The common objection to automating the reporting process is usually – “it will be expensive”

But this doesn’t have to be the case……...

By using a pre-built solution you can have a solution deployed within days, using it immediately to gain access to correct information.

With pre-built solutions such as those offered by Karabina Software this can be deployed within 14 days and costs are negligible – especially when compared to the fact that the person that usually has to do this can go back to revenue generating activities.

Reasons why your company should move to a pre-Built Business Analytics Solution?• Spend 80% less time Gathering Data

• Remove Errors and Improve Strategic Decision-Making

• Provides you with a number of pre-built industry models, reports and dashboards to ensure you achieve immediate business value

• High-Performing Companies are 50% more likely to use information strategically