As the market for customer relationship management (CRM) solutions matures, more and more companies are realizing that traditional, stand-alone CRM systems can become a real barrier to business efficiency. This is particularly the case for complex manufacturers running sales cycles that involve not just front office sales personnel, but also back office engineering and manufacturing functions.
In this article, I will discuss the rationale for "back office CRM"—CRM integrated tightly with enterprise resources planning (ERP) functionality so that all the information about a customer from throughout the enterprise can be attached to a customer record. I will use the story of Data I/O, a company that has successfully implemented back-office CRM, to demonstrate some of the best practices that complex manufacturers ought to consider.
A lack of communication
Any company using a CRM solution—regardless of the complexity of their sales cycle—is...
