Sage Blog

How often during your day-to-day operations, do your employees duplicate or even triplicate data entry into disparate business applications?

New customers need to be put into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for sales and aftercare, right? But you also need them in your finance system so you can bill them.  Employees get put in your HR and Payroll solution and then the HRM cost is input separately into your journal? Suppliers in your Sales system and your purchase ledger….the list goes on, as do the associated personnel costs.

Integration Generation

Different business applications manage customer information; front-office employees use CRM applications that support customer-facing activities, such as sales, marketing and customer service. Whereas back office employees use ERP systems that support transactional reporting and compliancy activities, such as invoicing, account receivable, cash-flow management and financial reporting.

While front-office applications have historically been developed around the idea of cross-organisational collaboration, back-office applications, by contrast have been insular in nature. This may possibly be  due to the legacy of the systems or perhaps the need for increased security within finance operations that has lead to reluctance in opening this data up to the rest of the business.

The lack of cross pollination of data from front to back office has historically lead companies to run business applications that have struggled to address key business needs. This is particularly true where  customer related processes cross from front to back office processing such as sales order processing and supply chain management, leading to silo’s of information, administrative inefficiencies and process duplication.

Today’s CRM and ERP systems have gone someway to address these common problems experienced in medium and large sized businesses –enhanced integration, workflow management, exceptions monitoring, mandatory fields and data moving from one part of the application to the other have all provided capabilities that increase front to back office integration, for example:

• Consistent data across ERP and CRM applications.
• 360 degree customer visibility, regardless of whether the customer data originated in the ERP or CRM.
• Straight through processing – which enables a user to initiate a transaction, and then automatically trigger all the business related processes.

The Sage integration advantage

I’ve been lucky enough to work within the team at Sage that looks at these challenges and develops solutions, such as Sage ERP X3 to address them. Front-to-back office integration is essential for companies – regardless of their size – to bring together disconnected employees, applications, data and develop business processes in order to help drive revenue, serve customers more efficiently and reduce cost.

Our approach to assimilating business management software is to focus on improving and simplifying the integration experience for all of our users. This is achieved by developing ERP products that, out-of-the-box, are compatible with market leading Sage CRM solutions. We also have our own integration contract. This technology, known as SData, is a common interface that enables desktop, server and web-based applications to communicate with each other and is used across the Sage organisation around the world.

The Sage ERP advantage

Using SData, our flagship ERP products now provide out-of-the box integration with Sage CRM solutions.  This equips businesses with a low cost, low complexity solution that in the short term gives the user consistent customer data across their front and back office environments, provides straight through processing and a 360 degree view of the customer. And in the long term will provide a decrease in administrative costs, increased customer satisfaction and the opportunity to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Julia Commons, Sage ERP Team

Visit our ERP pages for more information.

Technology Research company, Gartner describes Enterprise Resource Planning software (ERP) as the following: ERP improves business processes and the use of information across an organisation by integrating functions such as finance, order management and purchasing into a set of interconnected modules.

All clear now?

In simple terms, I would describe ERP as software that integrates all information and processes of an organisation into a common system. Enterprise Resource Planning software (ERP) can provide significant benefits to companies looking to take advantage of improving economic conditions. Improved cash-flow, enhanced financial and business-wide reporting, and a reduction in duplication of data entry are just some of the tangible benefits.

Evolving expectations

The market for ERP software changed significantly after the financial meltdown of 2008, since then businesses have witnessed a slow, fragile return to growth. Firms now want to see a faster return on investment, and products that are quicker and easier to install and integrate – all features found in Sage ERP 1000.

Deployment of ERP software can have a profound and positive impact on revenues. A sharp reduction in duplication of data and processes, improved cross departmental communication and better financial reporting are just a fraction of what ERP software can deliver, provided that the product is chosen carefully and the deployment and ongoing maintenance are managed well.

An emerging trend in the market is the need for quick to implement, international ERP solutions that support domestic locations, as well as offering strong international features, multiple language and currency support, multiple chart of accounts, all delivered to multiple locations – all features of Sage ERP X3.

Our free whitepaper ERP – building on the basics will help you find out more more about how ERP is evolving to meet the demands of you business.

The benefits of ERP software

Although they can be hard to quantify, the financial benefits of ERP may be realised in many different ways. Some organisations use ERP software to make savings in departmental budgets; being able to compare cost savings with revenue gains, leads to better decision making when setting targets.

ERP systems can also make it easier to identify non-productive areas of the business, allowing managers to move staff to where they can better benefit the organisation. Still more savings can be realised by speeding up the monthly close process, in which a firm’s books are temporarily closed and analysed to produce a set of financial statements that indicate how well the company is performing.

A faster close process allows management information and analysis to be made available sooner, giving the organisation more time in which to analyse the figures before producing financial statements. Full or partial automation of this process by ERP can lead to significant reductions in the close cycle. The boost to business from these financial benefits is obvious. Better cash flow and liquidity is a critically important part of both riding out an economic downturn and taking maximum advantage of the recovery.

The question of compliance

The compliance landscape has become harder to navigate safely in recent years. The last UK government passed record amounts of regulatory legislation and in the wake of the financial crisis the financial industry in particular has been subjected to further scrutiny.

The financial services industry serves as an ideal illustration of the importance of data governance. The crisis in 2008 ensured that the customers of financial institutions are more clear-eyed than ever about the risks they run in investing their money. Trust is imperative and quite rightly, potential customers insist on knowing that their confidential information is safe.

ERP software can help companies re-engineer their business processes to ensure compliance with government lead legislations such as Sarbanes Oxley or IFRS (…to give but a few examples). Sage ERP X3 is particularly strong in helping companies to achieve and provide evidence of compliance with the above legislations through providing comprehensive audit facilities, embedded work flow, field auditing options and strong security.

Positioned for growth

As the economy emerges from recession, firms need to ensure they are positioned for growth and able to take full advantage of the changing conditions. It is clear that the advantages in terms of operational efficiency, financial flexibility and inter-departmental communications offered by ERP systems can provide a distinct competitive advantage to those firms with the foresight and capability to deploy them.

There can be no doubt that ERP software is evolving to meet the demands of businesses both now and in the future. Sage provides a number of solutions aimed at different organisations, taking ERP out of its traditional enterprise environment and making it available to specific industries and niche markets.

Julia Commons, Product Marketing Manager, Sage Enterprise Solutions

Download the free whitepaper ERP – building on the basics; how ERP is evolving to meet the demands of you business or visit our ERP software pages for more information

According to recent research, on average it costs four times as much to gain a new customer, as it does to retain an existing one. So building a great customer experience is not just a nice to have, but is a must in today’s market place.

ERP expert, Julia Commons

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can help you retain valuable customers and provide them with an exceptional experience that will have them coming back to your products and services time and time again as well as delivering many other benefits to organisations large or small.

By creating a 360 degree view of your customer,  integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and CRM software can help you to increase sales activity, track sales leads at every stage and get the right product to the right customer, on time, every time.

The evolution of CRM and ERP

In an ever-maturing CRM market, there is general recognition by vendors and end-users alike that CRM and indeed the whole process of customer management cannot be dealt with using a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Alongside this, the industry has evolved to take advantage of the growth of technologies such as eMarketing and social media. Vendors such as Sage can now also support multiple deployment and configuration options, for example, monthly subscription, hosted or on-premise.

Whilst sticking closely to its heritage of addressing key productivity issues, ERP software has also moved on from the foundations of being a data repository for larger organisations, to being used more and more to automate processes, identify business opportunities and drive management decisions.

So perhaps the most interesting trend is that of system integration and in particular, the integration of CRM and ERP into one single system and the benefits that system can bring to our customers.

Front to back office integration

Front to back office integration is about bringing together disconnected business processes, applications and data sets. With this integrated view, you gain a mechanism to manage customer relationships more effectively, reduce costs and increase profitability whilst achieving a sustainable competitive advantage over the long term.

A great example of this is the ‘quote to cash’ business process, which enables the user to create a quote during the sales cycle, apply the correct customer discounts and bundles, and carry this same information through to invoice – all within one integrated ERP and CRM system.

In simple terms, front to back office integration provides the following capabilities:

• Consistent data across ERP and CRM Applications
• A true 360 degree view of your customer – regardless of whether the data originated in the CRM or ERP.
• More efficient processes such as straight through order processing which enable the user to initiate a transaction that will then trigger all related business processes, for example – check stock availability, add customer discounts, create and track sales order, generate an invoice and verify order fulfillment.
• A strong mechanism to deliver the very best customer service and maximise customer retention

The benefits

The benefits that integrated ERP and CRM systems can bring to an organisation are many, and can be realised by sales, marketing, operational and finance teams as well as, and perhaps most importantly, your customers.

ERP and CRM vendors are continuously improving their products, making them available on new platforms and also adding new features to meet the specific needs of different vertical sectors across the range of company sizes.

An ERP and CRM system is a major purchase and choosing a vendor and product set can be a daunting task.  It is important that organisations settle on a system that will not only meet their current needs and budget, but which will be flexible enough to scale with them and to take full advantage of emerging technologies.

For more information on the integrated ERP and CRM solutions that Sage can offer you, such as Sage ERP 1000 or view our full range of ERP solutions.

Julia Commons, Product Marketing Manager, Sage Enterprise Solutions

There are a lot of things people don’t know about us here at Sage.  Working here for 11 years, I’m continuously learning new things about this place. For example, did you know that one of the founders of Sage was previously one of the four key navigators for the first Apollo mission to land on the moon? And the name Sage was inspired by a herb poster in a pub! We could have so easily been Thyme – although it doesn’t quite have the same ring.

Graeme Edwards, Sage Mid Market Division

Today we are the only FTSE 100 company in the North East, but something else that a lot of people aren’t aware of is our presence in mid-market as well as small business software. In fact, a third of the FTSE 100 uses Sage software to run their business.

Another interesting stat: every postcode area in the UK has a business using a Sage mid market software solution….

We have kept these kind of things quiet so far, but that’s all going to change…

Last week we’ve launched our “All business, not just small business” marketing campaign to support our presence in this part of the market and change perceptions that we are not just an market leader in the small business space but we are also market leading in the enterprise space too.

Apart from the awareness campaign, there’s lots more going on and coming later in the year are many exciting product launches for larger companies. We’ve also strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of General Managers Bob Anderson and Carlene Jackson in our focused ERP and CRM units.

We hope these strategic hires will help to ensure we are even better placed to meet the more complex business requirements of larger organisations and support the needs of our 20,500 mid-market customers.

Graeme Edwards, Head of Commercial Marketing, Sage Mid Market Division