Tag Archive for: data

Closing More Deals With Effective Lead and Opportunity Tracking With a CRM

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In today’s world, with more employees working remotely — including sales, marketing, and customer service teams — keeping track of leads, opportunities, and sales can be a challenge. CRMs are designed to assist employees to keep track. There are numerous CRMs a business can choose from such as Salesforce, Dynamics 365, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, and more.

With a CRM up and running, leads and customer data are available for anyone that needs it, no matter where they may be working (from home, in the field, traveling, etc.) This is especially beneficial for companies with a remote sales workforce, such as Miller Plastic Products, that worked with Plus+ Consulting and Commercient to connect Salesforce Professional with their ERP, JobBOSS. 

“To have that JobBOSS data in Salesforce via SYNC makes a world of difference for us trying to find things and comment on jobs,” said Tim Zeliesko, COO at Miller Plastic Products.

Read the full customer success story here.

To enhance the CRM experience, Commercient SYNC connects the CRM with more than 85 ERPs (Sage, Epicor, Infor, JobBOSS, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, and others). This way, the sales team has access to ERP information such as orders, invoices, customer data, and more.

That’s why Plus+ Consulting and Commercient joined forces to help more companies to increase sales and provide outstanding customer service. 

How can a CRM help your sales team to keep better track of leads and opportunities, and close more deals? Read below.

Leads and Customer Data is More Accessible

When your ERP data is integrated with your CRM, it becomes easier to track, since it is stored in one place. It can be easily accessed by your sales, marketing, and customer service teams from any place, on any device, and at any time.

This helps to avoid lost time and increases productivity, as no employee will spend hours digging through redundant files to look up opportunities and close deals. The sales teams will be able to find information quickly, helping to build better customer relationships.

With the partnership between Commercient and Plus+, their mutual customer Miller Plastic Products benefitted from having access to their JobBOSS data directly in Salesforce. They can spend more time growing their sales.

Quoting Process Made Easier

Once your ERP data is integrated into your CRM, all the necessary information is there to effectively create a quote. A CRM can help your sales teams by creating quotes directly from opportunities, and can automatically be added in as a document that assists in streamlining your sales process.

In your CRM, each quote can be modified according to the opportunity, and once completed, it is then sent to the prospect or customer via email. Quotation management can also assist in keeping a history of quotes made, to keep a record of that data, in case needed in the future. Once the quote is completed, it can then be converted into an invoice to close a deal.

“It really helps when it gets down to the quoting aspect to quickly be able to pull up information from previous jobs and similar jobs,” explained Zeliesko. “Or if a customer ordered something a few years ago, and we want to see that historical data, we can get that pretty fast, as well.”


Communication

Good communication is important, in order for your business to grow, and having a CRM to track interactions between customers and employees will help achieve that. Allowing your CRM to track tasks can help with communication, linking departments, and helping everyone stay on the right path. It can result in improved sales, customer relationships, customer satisfaction, and efficiency.

But how does communication work in a CRM? First, it can track conversations that have attachments and messages in an accurate way, preventing mistakes. You will be able to discover any errors and/or adjustments that need to be made within your sales process. 

Second, employees are able to access the data in the CRM at any time or anywhere. This allows communication to take place over projects instantaneously.

And finally, communication in a CRM can improve customer experiences by seeing historical data, and finding leads to close deals.

“It’s definitely going to increase the efficiency of our sales, and increase communication and contact with potential customers and current customers,” said Zeliesko. “I see a lot less things slipping through the cracks with Salesforce.”

Projections and Forecasting

Having a CRM like Salesforce is especially important in order to have accurate forecasting and projections, since it can pick up on opportunities in order to close deals faster. In addition, forecasting can help a company or a sales team determine what is going to be sold in a week, month, or year, as it helps with identifying risks that can be handled before it is too late.

But how does a CRM do this? By using historical data within your CRM, it can help build trends to provide an accurate picture of what your business looks like. From there, sales strategies can be created with the given reports and a salesperson can provide quotas to their managers based on the projections from the forecasting.

In addition, historical sales data SYNC’d from JobBOSS to Salesforce helps the sales team at Miller Plastic Products to quote customers better. It also assists the company with projections and forecasting.

Conclusion

Commercient can close the gap in your CRM to assist your sales team by using the SYNC ERP and CRM data integration platform. Leads and opportunities will be easier to track and clients will get the most out of their data.


If you found these guidelines helpful, please contact us today to find out how we can help streamline your business.

5 Reasons Why Real-Time Data Is Crucial For Your Business

The need to obtain and analyze data is evolving. Businesses are collecting vast quantities of information in real-time. To get the most out of data, companies need to analyze it as soon as it is generated, because real-time data helps to make faster and better decisions. This applies to both businesses of all sizes.

Part of today’s digital transformation — meaning the implementation of digital and cloud technology into all aspects of business — involves being able to instantly decide on the next best action (Forbes).

Most companies already have a valuable amount of standard and real-time data provided from their business tools, such as an ERP or CRM system (Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management, respectively). But this information becomes useless if the business ignores it, or doesn’t know how to properly analyze it. Imagine selling a car to a person who can’t drive.

Data analytics is a commercial area whose market value is estimated to reach $22.8 billion by 2020 (Gartner). The managers who perform data analysis are three times as likely to execute decisions as intended (Bain and Company).

Today, companies must be capable of making smart decisions faster, such as changes in their offerings and promotions, in advance or in real-time. And then align them with constantly-changing external factors.

How Your Business Benefits from Real-Time Data

1. With real-time data analysis, a company is able to continuously monitor their product or service performance, and quickly apply corrective measures when something doesn’t go according to plan. Don’t wait until the end of the quarter or the year to apply changes in your products or services when the market is demanding changes today.

2. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems can benefit from real-time data in order to provide better service for consumers. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Zoho CRM are three popular examples of CRM. It also helps to develop more engagement. For example, by tracking conversations leads to a better understanding of customer’s preferences, needs, expectations, and to build a more accurate buyer persona.

3. Make better and faster decisions to get the most out of your business’ competitive advantages in the market. Sometimes those competitive advantages are clear for you and your staff, but sometimes what you may be overlooking is crucial for your clients.

4. Anticipate and understand the strategies of competitors, which can help you seize opportunities, or prevent problems before they happen. How fast do your competitors respond to customers’ needs? Is the process too slow? With instant access to customer data, you can quickly improve your customers’ experience. That can become an important competitive advantage.

5. Reduce costs by optimizing processes in full execution. The more complex the process, the more money is needed to keep it working. With a bi-directional data integration, such as the one offered by Commercient SYNC, everything works faster and more smoothly. There isn’t a need to make big investments in different systems. Additionally, time previously spent on double data entry and error correction goes “back” to the business.

How to Obtain and Analyze Real-Time Data

Once you learn the value of real-time data for your business, it’s good to research the best tools that suit your business. With that in mind, Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales, is great for integrating your ERP and CRM data. You’ll have access to important data in real-time, without the need of ETL, data mapping, or coding on your part.

Having access to your ERP data directly in CRM can give you a 360-degree view of sales and marketing, and give you a competitive advantage. This ERP data includes customer information, sales history, invoicing, serial numbers invoiced, inventory, tracking numbers and shipping information, multi-ship to addresses, and much more.

With a two-way SYNC, new accounts, orders, opportunities, etc., which are created in CRM are integrated to ERP. This helps you avoid double-data entry and potential errors.

Don’t run your company blindly. Start delivering the best customer experience by choosing Commercient SYNC to give you the best insights when you need it. Take your business to the next level with data integration. Contact us today to learn more.

SYNC ERP and CRM

How to Use Data to Drive Business Growth and Success

There is a never-ending avalanche of information and data coursing through society every minute of everyday. If our reactions are not instant, information can quickly lose its relevance and become outdated as new information is made available. The Information Age has given rise to a data-driven business world, where information and knowledge have become the key ingredients to ensure the success and continued survival of a business.

The Power of Data

Data has become one of the most powerful, yet under-utilized assets of any business. As the number of connected Internet of Things (IoT) -enabled devices increases, so does the volume of data generated. Digital businesses driven by the need for continual up-to-date information will pursue data-driven intelligence in order to meet the demands of a now intelligent environment. Data has become the center of the business universe.

It presents a great opportunity to differentiate against your competitors by leveraging insights from data to improve processes, make better decisions, deliver greater value to customers, and more. Data can help address the many challenges faced by businesses today. But most importantly, data can be a business differentiator for driving growth and success.

Technology is Changing What’s Possible

Companies that are cognizant of the potential value of data find themselves under increasing pressure to make better use of their data to remain relevant and competitive. As a result, old ways of collecting and processing data are being turned upside down as technology-focused approaches unravel new ways of using data to ensure business growth and success.

Advancements in technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the IoT (Internet of Things) have introduced easier, more efficient methods of collecting, storing and analyzing data. When used effectively, data can have a positive impact on your bottom line, ultimately driving the growth and success of your business.

The Importance of Data Integration for Business

One of the challenges faced by many businesses is the ability to use the increasing volume of data available to the fullest extent of its value. The problem is that data is stored across multiple data sources, which operate in silos.

If it is stored across multiple databases, the lack of integration to combine data from different sources can severely hinder the growth of your business. The solution to successfully combating this challenge is to break down the boundaries between these disparate sources of information, and integrate your business systems.

The Benefits of Data Integration

The ability for different systems to integrate and share data with one another has become a critical success factor for digital businesses in every industry. Data integration gives you a holistic view of your business performance, and provides real-time access to all your data. This allows you to analyze your data more effectively to improve business outcomes by increasing efficiencies and reducing costs in a timely manner.

By integrating your data, you can turn it into actionable insights to improve overall business operations. It can also enhance customer service and satisfaction, and unlock new opportunities that will increase the competitiveness of your business and drive growth.

Data-Driven Intelligence with Commercient SYNC ERP and CRM Integration

As a reputable services company, Commercient’s goal is to provide solutions that help companies take advantage of their data to succeed in competitive environments. We empower businesses to keep pace in order to change and grow and believes that data integration is key to business growth and success.

Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales, allows you to tap into the disparate systems and applications by integrating them to provide a unified view of business operations. By combining the power of your sales and accounting systems, SYNC enables you to maintain and leverage data in one central location. It gives you a 360-degree view of your sales, marketing, and operations, helping you derive data-driven intelligence from all your business data.

SYNC helps forward-thinking companies to uncover the value of their data and make it available to the right people, at the right time, and in a meaningful way. Most importantly, the untapped resource of your data can increase revenue and profits, thereby repaying your investment many times over.

What Commercient SYNCs

Commercient SYNC integrates with over 85 ERP systems to CRM including SYSPRO, Sage, Epicor, SAP, QuickBooks, Acumatica, and many others. We support these CRMs: Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365, SugarCRM and more.

With SYNC, your sales team can see important ERP information directly in CRM. This includes customer information, sales history, invoicing, serial numbers invoiced, inventory, multi ship to addresses, etc. New sales, accounts and invoices are integrated from CRM to ERP, which avoids double-entry and possible errors, with our two-way SYNC option.

In this information age, data is power, which will put your business on the right path to growth and success. Contact Commercient today to find out how your business can use data to drive growth and success. You can also learn about our other integration app, IoT Pulse, which connects your ERP to over 1100 business and productivity apps, to help automate data migrations and frequent tasks.

With our extensive experience, Commercient can help businesses just like yours, forge ahead by harnessing the power of data.

SYNC ERP and CRM

The Importance of Data Integrity for Your Business

Every day, organizations make decisions based on real-time data. And data integrity is essential to analyzing reliable and trustworthy information. Making data-driven business decisions based on corrupt data can have serious ramifications for your company’s future. It can lead to errors, missed opportunities and even loss of profits.

What is Data Integrity?

Data integrity is the maintenance and the assurance of the accuracy and consistency of data over its entire life-cycle. It’s a critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which stores, processes, or retrieves data. [Source: Wikipedia].

In essence, it is the characteristic of information to remain complete, consistent and reliable during its life cycle.

Data Integrity Threats

Data can be transferred to other systems, modified and updated multiple times throughout its existence. The problem arises when unexpected changes to data occur.

Unintentional changes or the deletion of parts of data may render the data useless. It is no longer accurate and reliable, as it is different from its original form.

Common threats to the integrity of your business data include:

  • Human error – accidental alteration or deletion
  • Unintended transfer errors
  • Compromised hardware
  • Cyber attacks
  • Security errors
  • Malware

Tips to Minimize Data Integrity Risk

While there is no perfect solution, the following controls can be put in place to preserve data integrity and minimize risk:

  1. Protect Your Documents
    You can protect documents by adding restrictions to the files. Vendors such as Adobe and Microsoft have the ability to restrict actions that can be taken on documents – from read-only to allowing only certain changes. You can also password-protect your documents and PDFs.
  2. Integrate Your Data Systems
    When you have multiple departments entering data into multiple disconnected systems, you will more than likely end up with data that’s inconsistent and unreliable. A connected CRM and ERP system helps to eliminate this problem. Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales, can help you minimize risk to the integrity of your business data by securely integrating your ERP data with your CRM data. You will no longer need to manually transfer data between systems, reducing the risk of human error.
  3. Introduce Access Controls
    Personnel without official access and with malicious intent can do serious harm to data. Implementing a least privilege model, where only users who need access to data get access, is a very common form of access control.
  4. Implement Backup and Recovery Procedures
    Regular data backups are critical, and go a long way in maintaining data integrity and preventing valuable data loss. In the event of a breach, data that is regularly backed up can be recovered in its original form.
  5. Leverage Audit Trails
    A computer-generated, time-stamped audit trail records the identity, date and time of data entries, changes and deletions. In the event that data is compromised, audit trails provide the breadcrumbs that lead to the source of the problem.
  6. Passwords
    Use passwords to prevent unauthorized access to all storage devices where data is kept. Don’t store your passwords on your computer or write them down on post-it notes.
  7. Ensure Security
    Cyber security practices such as file encryption can also contribute to minimizing data integrity risk. It’s also recommended to use anti-malware software to block malicious attacks and files from reaching your computer and modifying your data.

The effects of corrupted data can have serious consequences for any business. It is therefore absolutely necessary to implement measures to protect the integrity of your data at all costs.

To find out how Commercient SYNC can help you minimize data integrity risk by securely integrating your sales and marketing systems, please contact us today!

About the Author

Anna Kinnear is a Sage Financials Consultant at Edgeware, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa. She has always had a passion for reading and writing.

SYNC ERP and CRM

Why Blockchain Is the Next Big Thing for Small Business

Have you ever heard of the term “blockchain?” Experts predict that it will have a major impact on the global economy; indeed, some say it’s the biggest technological breakthrough since the internet. Everyone both in the financial and non-financial industries is buzzing about it. So what exactly is blockchain?

What is blockchain?

According to the Harvard Business Review, “With blockchain technology, the core system that underpins bitcoin, computers of separately owned entities follow a cryptographic protocol to constantly validate updates to a commonly shared ledger. A fundamental advantage of this distributed system, where no single company has control, is that it resolves problems of disclosure and accountability between individuals and institutions whose interests aren’t necessarily aligned. Mutually important data can be updated in real time, removing the need for laborious, error-prone reconciliation with each other’s internal records. It gives each member of the network far greater and timelier visibility of the total activity.”

Often equated to digital spreadsheets that can be shared amongst many, blockchain technology can provide several benefits for small businesses. We have enumerated them below.

Improve security of transactions

For small businesses, the beauty of blockchain technology is that it is a distributed ledger – that is, there is no middleman or company who owns the data set. Instead, information is listed across a distributed network, whereby everyone in the network can validate the accuracy of the central ledger using their own copy. Users are in complete control of all their information and transactions and there is no central point of failure, therefore it makes it easier for you to avoid malicious attacks.

According to Nasdaq, “Even if a hacker is able to penetrate one network and attempts to steal funds, there are multiple redundant copies of the same ledger stored around the world. If one is tampered with, the others could be used as a backup to prove what funds actually belong in each account.” Forbes says blockchain is a technology which “offers a built-in mechanism for trust” for small businesses. In other words, blockchain keeps your business transactions secure.

Streamline businesses processes

Another benefit blockchain provides small businesses is that it can help streamline business processes. The process of clearing and settling a bank transaction can take days, but with blockchain technology, since the middleman is absent from the equation, transactions are able to move more quickly. This enables more transactions more quickly, allowing you to access your money more rapidly.

Smart contracts,  for instance, are a type of blockchain technology that controls the transfer of digital currencies. According to Blockgeeks, they help you in several ways.  “[You] exchange money, property, shares, or anything of value in a transparent, conflict-free way, while avoiding the services of a middleman…You’d ordinarily have to spend chunks of time and paperwork to manually process documents. Smart contracts use software code to automate tasks, thereby shaving hours off a range of business processes.”

Ultimately this means that you are not only able to make your organization more efficient, but also cut costs in the long run.

Conclusion

The benefits that blockchain technology can provide for small businesses are quite impressive. It can help you and your small business improve the security of your digital transactions, optimize operations and cut costs. If you are a small business, it’s certainly a technology worth investigating, particularly if security is a priority. If you’d like to learn more about blockchain, check out this  Blockchain Technology whitepaper from UC Berkeley.

 

Commercient can help you optimize your business processes, as well. Contact us today to find out how,

What Big Data Means for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

There is a lot of talk these days about Big Data. We did a little research of our own to help you understand what exactly Big Data is and what it means for small and mid-sized business (SMB). We will also investigate why you should employ Big Data solutions if you haven’t already.

What is Big Data?

According to Salesforce.com, Big Data is “A collection of data sets so large and complicated that traditional methods of data processing can’t cope.” Business News Daily defines it as “The massive amount of information businesses collect from online and offline sources. These sources include websites, social networks, mobile apps, software, documents, computer logs, sensor networks and many more.” In essence, it is data that allows businesses to gain more insights about their customers, marketing campaigns, and financial status. Here is what Big Data means for small and medium-sized businesses.

Better business decisions

For SMB, Big Data means better business decisions. With Big Data solutions like Google Analytics, a free web analytic tool that provides companies with data about website traffic, your business can ascertain:

  1.    What people are searching for on your site
  2.    How many people are visiting your site
  3.    Where your visitors live
  4.    What websites are sending traffic to your site
  5.    What people are clicking on the most
  6.    What pages are performing the worst
  7.    What pages and content do visitors like the most
  8. You can also learn about key demographics of your customers, such as age, job title, etc.

All this data can reveal trends, help you understand your customers and make better data-driven decisions.

Stronger customer relationships

Big Data not only helps businesses make better business decisions, but it can also help you to create stronger customer relationships. Canopy Labs, for instance, is a customer analytics platform and Big Data solution that provides SMBs with predictions on their audience’s behavior and trends.  Its 360-degree Customer View shows data about each customer, including propensity to buy, loyalty and engagement level,  and email behaviors as well as other metrics. This will allow you to create more personalized offers for each customer, predict customer expectations and activity, and launch more effective online campaigns.,This allows you to build stronger customer relationships because the customer is getting campaigns tailored for them, a personal touch that is imperative in the age of the consumer.

Better insights

With Big Data, SMBs can also gain better insights and a clear understanding of their business which can lead to efficiency improvements, reduction in costs, and better customer service.  For example, Qualtrics, another Big Data solution, allows businesses to conduct studies and surveys to gain valuable insights about their customers, brand, employees, and product, all in one platform. According to Qualtrics, these insights help businesses make “informed, data-driven business decisions.” The data can also help companies create more products that meet the needs of their customers.

As a business owner, it’s good sense to use data to your advantage. It is the age of the consumer, so use analytics to gain better insights into your customers and forge lifelong relationships.

 

Did you know that you can get a 360-degree view of your business if you integrate your systems? Commercient can help you take full advantage of the data from your ERP and your CRM.  Contact us today to find out how.