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Interprise Suite is a truly integrated system. It has fully integrated CRM, Accounting, Stock Control, Order Processing, Business Intelligence, Reports, eCommerce, email, fax, document management and more.

A truly integrated system is one that looks and feels the same and follows the same business logic rather than a "bag of bits". Only having to learn one product and have one database of information greatly increases productivity. It also saves cost and complexity to run such an application.

Systems that are disparate require synchronisation, which is a continuous nightmare for the user and supporting companies. Procedures to follow and Rules about what does what between different systems are a serious issue. Take for example something simple like editing or deleting a customer record what decides what updates or restricts which system and this gives you an idea of the many issues, even simple ones, that have to be addressed.

A common scenario is one of a system getting an upgrade and the integration then not working. When using an API rather than file transfer this is even more prone to the problem and more complex to fix.

Support is a major issue when you have disparate systems and the finger wagging that can occur between the different software vendors or supporting resellers when a problem occurs. The problems are always complex and an understanding or skill sets with both products is required usually to resolve it. The user in the middle has a lot of hassle and unproductive time for their users while it is sorted out. This can cause serious loss of productivity.

The lack of integration by vendors that supply both ERP and CRM systems show how difficult it is to integrate disparate systems even when they have full control over them, so products from different suppliers will be even worse. After so many years with these products if they could integrate them properly they would have done it by now.

Maintenance and support costs are usually a lot more than an integrated system due to the additional complexities, skill sets and multiple companies involved.

The rudimentary integration that results from tying together separate ERP and CRM systems provides at the best a snap shot in time rather than a real time view into the business performance which is essential to staying competitive and effectively managing and growing a business. The integrations of multiple systems patched together typically always fall short of a vendors promise as well as being more expensive.

Integration is something that is brushed under the carpet at sale time and typically wrapped up with a loose spec and so many development days that never seem to deliver the end result the user first envisaged. The final result a dissatisfied customer who has not had value for money and certainly not a positive promoter of the brand involved or the reseller.

This is the one area that will give a user much better productivity and it seems incredible its been ignored for so long.

Examples of features an integrated system should have are as follows. If it does not do it out of the box then a good bet would be that it will never do it in an acceptable way.

• One Look and Feel, One Business Logic and One Database
  
  
• Incoming and Outgoing email is automatically attached to customer or supplier activity records. Ask for some reference sites who actually do it as they may say it does it but whether it works reliably is another matter.
  
  
• Target lists that can be created based not just on fields in the database but also custom fields created by the user and most importantly the sales history data. Lets take the example that you have some slow moving stock or are offered some stock at a good price from a supplier. You need to be able to quickly and easily see who has ever bought these items or items within this product group as targeting these companies has the best chance of success in moving the stock. Can these target lists also be used in a marketing campaign so you can create call lists, faxes, emails or letters based on it.
  
  
• Identifying cross sell and up sell opportunities when quoting or doing an order for a customer. I.e. companies that buy this item also buy these items, which prompt the user to ask the question when talking to them or doing a quote or order. Also the ability to add the items easily to an order as you are doing it.
  
  
• Buying history patterns so you can identify if a customer is not buying anymore or has gone elsewhere so you can address it. Again this is prompting the user to ask the customer to make sure you are not loosing the business and if you are find out why.
  
  
• Create Quotes linked to Opportunities that are based on customer special pricing set-up in the customer record or stock system. Also conversion of a quote to an order easily. Some systems do quotes and link to opportunities but do not then allow conversion to an order or use the stock items and special pricing in the ERP system. Some systems do the other which is quote and conversion to order and use special pricing but the quote is within the ERP system and so cannot be linked to an opportunity and used in opportunity management or sales force automation in CRM.
  
  
• Conversion of a lead or prospect to a customer and opportunity.
  
  
• Activities such as calls, call backs, meetings, cases, opportunities, credit control information, transaction history, outstanding orders etc are all linked to a customer record. Can you get a contact and customer centred view of all things that have occurred or are happening to them in one place.
  
  
• Customers can have many contacts and the ability to see a Contact centred view of the activities, emails etc. i.e. just the information linked to that contact.