Rex

The Quote-to-Cash cycle (diagram below) is an example of where these issues can arise.

Given the number of potential parties involved in the quote-to-cash cycle: (1) account
management, (2) sales order processing, (3) shipping and (4) accounts receivable, errors or
omissions at any stage in the process can be costly and time-consuming.. Additionally, frontoffice
staff, such as account managers or customer service agents, may struggle to provide
order status updates to their customers because of limited visibility on the transactional
information contained in the back-office system.

Rex

The customer management and business process challenges that
companies face today
Different departments use different application types to manage customer information; frontoffice
employees use CRM applications that support customer-facing activities such as sales,
marketing and customer service whereas back-office employees use ERP applications that
support transactional, reporting and compliancy activities, such as invoicing, accounts
receivable, cashflow management and financial reporting. While front-office applications
have historically been developed around the idea of cross-organisational collaboration, backoffice
applications, by contrast, have been insular in nature, with the finance department slow
to open up its data and applications to other parts of the organisation. Additionally, many
companies have continued to purchase their CRM and ERP applications from separate,
specialist vendors. This combination of factors has meant that business applications have
struggled to address key business process needs where the customer lifecycle crosses the
front-to-back-office divide, resulting in: (1) departmental silos of information, (2) unnecessary administrative overhead and inefficiencies, (3) verbal sign-off requirements and (4) process
duplication.

Rex

Gartner research suggests that significant information ‘blindspots’ still exist after many CRM
project roll-outs1, particularly with regard to customer transaction history. One potential
explanation is that these projects have not adequately addressed the issue of back-office
connectivity. Overly ‘front-heavy’ implementations can result in the operation of two parallel,
but separate customer datasets; one in the back-office which is financial, transactional and
quantitative in nature, and the other in the front-office which, by contrast, is non-financial,
interactional and qualitative.

Rex

This whitepaper demonstrates how front-to-back-office integration enables small and
medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to address these issues. Specifically, it details how prepackaged,
integration-ready solutions from Sage CRM allow SMBs to seamlessly connect
their business processes, applications and data to (1) manage customer relationships more
effectively, (2) reduce costs and (3) increase profitability over the long term. Significantly, this
can be achieved without the cost and complexity normally associated with projects of this
type.

Rex

Independent research suggests that the area of back-office connectivity is not adequately
addressed by many CRM implementations. Where this is the case, customer data cannot be
shared effectively and business processes are punctuated by errors, delays and paperwork.
Over the long term, this will impact negatively, and significantly, on overall customer
satisfaction, as well as increasing transactional cost on an exponential basis