Exercise 26: End of the Line: Systems integration

I choose the Business process analysis.

2. Business process analysis
Organisations can use several systems to monitor, record business process transactions such as:
•Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),
•Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
•Workflow Management,
These software systems store data on instances of business processes transactions and can be analysed using data or process mining (PM) and reverse business engineering (RBE). In the case of ERP systems, integration of all data and processes goes into a single database as system components – the ultimate integration notion, perhaps.

Summary:
I chose business process analysis and scattered bits together. According to the Sagebusiness.com (2008), "ERP systems for functions such as managing receivables, inventory, and finance, and CRM systems are used to manage contact relationships, cross-sells, and up-sells."

Although ERP and CRM are different systems, Sagebussiness.com (2008) stated that properly integration of the system increase the profitability and productivity than investment and efforts involved.

George (2008) suggested the following points for the system integrations:
1. Take a business process view of ERP-CRM integration
He suggested considering the benefit to the business than the individual business.

2. Determine how ERP-CRM integration can benefit end users
He suggested the users should gain improvement on experience the new integrated system.

3. Reduce fears around loss of control
He suggested that integration should reduce the duplication of the customer information.

4. Cultivating the right ERP-CRM integration team
According to the organization size, the integration team should be from different department with limited number of people to reduce conflicts.

5. Assigning process ownership for an ERP-CRM integration project
Due to the system is different in ERP and CRM, the new system should allow to manage different kind of data. The integration can be into single or multi instances strategies.

I don’t work on the ERP and CRM. As I studied the passages of system integration on both systems, when a relation of the planning of the resource to the customer needs, the "order-to-cash processes" (Sagebusiness.com 2008) leads the reduction of the cost. On the other hand, as the CRM can analysis for the market trend, the ERP can allocate more resources to the market that expanding for more profits.

Reference:
Walia S. (2008), CRM and E-Commerce: The Integration Payoff, Retrieved 25 May 2009 from http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/64103.html?wlc=1243405763

Sagebusiness.com.au (2008), ERP & CRM  Integration Tips, Retrieved 25 May 2009 from http://www.sagebusiness.com.au/pg-news-erp-crm-software-integration-top-tips.seo

George L. (2008), Benefits of ERP-CRM integration, Retrieved 25 May 2009 from http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid11_gci1320412,00.html