Objective
Our client is a leader in Hospitality Services and part of an international Group. Their Asia Pacific Marketing Department selected a new CRM package for Sales staff across the region. This new CRM software was not affiliated with their ERP software. This meant that there was no OOTB integration. They quickly identified that creating and maintaining two separate customer and customer contact lists was not going to be manageable for staff.
They asked us to build the integration between the CRM package and the ERP system.
Solution Delivery
- This particular CRM package had a set of robust, two-way, APIs and a strong authentication method. This meant the only challenges were from and for the ERP software.
- We put our standard API management tool into the ERP. We then developed custom APIs, data tables and programs to export the data from the ERP (the Customer source of truth) to the CRM and vice versa.
- They initially didn’t need us to provide any Business Analyst or business process assistance. However, this became an important part of the delivery when the original client Project Lead resigned.
- We delivered the integration, as requested. Unfortunately, without a strong client-side Project Lead in place, there was no impetus in the business to use the CRM package. The project moved very slowly, until it finally stalled. There was no action for around six months.
- Our client assigned a new CRM Business Owner to the project and progress recommenced. Their first task was to realign data between the two systems and then test the integration. At this time, the new Business Owner identified that there were certain parts of the integration that needed to be added or amended. These were related to parts of the process that no one in the business had previously identified or been keen to own.
Achievements
- Everyone learned a few lessons on this project! The original business team didn’t want to take ownership of the data or the processes. This made it tricky to provide the integration they expected – they had assumed that the integration would magically fix business data issues.
- Due to the lack of business ownership, we had to be a lot more actively involved in the business testing than we had expected.
- Once the new internal owners for the project were assigned, the project moved along more consistently. We were able to go live and provide the expected environment for the end-users.
- Due to lack of clarity from the original business project lead, this project is still ongoing and in a continuous improvement phase.
If you’d like to learn more about this project or talk to us, click here for our contact details.