I want to start out this message with identifying a few undeniable facts.

Fact 1: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 is an awesome CRM tool for the mid market.

Fact 2: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 is a complex and highly configurable tool. CRM is not a tool that solves all your problems out of the box – but it is geared to be so configurable and flexible it will fit your business with some effort and likely some outside help.

Fact 3: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 is an awesome ERP tool.

Fact 4: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015 is not a tool for tiny businesses, it is too complex. GP is a highly configurable tool that does all the things a mid-sized business needs. It can fit your business perfectly with some expert help.

It is pretty simple to see that the match made in heaven is to put together the two products built from the same development team at Microsoft – Dynamics CRM and Dynamics GP. Two tools that meet the specific needs of both the Front Office sales and marketing team, and at the same time solves all the operational and back in accounting, invoicing and finance needs.

Both CRM and GP are tools. They have a great deal of functionality built in, but they do way more if you take the time to use them, configure them and mold them to your business. This is why they are mid market tools and are not available for $20/month online. They cost real money and take good implementers to make them provide the business solution you are looking for.

It is really a no brainer to me that when a midmarket company is looking for a Business System they will be looking for a solution for the whole business. That is both the front office and the back office. More importantly it is more of a no brainer that these two applications MUST talk to each other. In the end it will be primarily different teams that work with each tool, but there is a level of overlap where data must be shared across both teams and that requires that data to be shared across both applications.

There are hundreds of examples of where ERP and CRM integration is essential. I have a simple example. At the end of every month a routine should be run that looks through your ERP invoice data and finds every customer that spent more than $50,000 with you for the month. This triggers an activity in CRM for the CEO to call that customer – and say Thank You.  Now that is Customer Relationship Management.

Implementers of ERP understand the need for integration. Implementers of CRM understand the need for integration. The problem is that few people have a complete handle on BOTH CRM and GP. In a presales process there is usually a CRM demo consultant and a GP demo consultant. Both demo consultants are really clever at what they do – what often happens is that they don’t talk much!  The integration piece becomes a grey area which everyone knows about, but rarely is anyone given the job to OWN the middle ground. Integration becomes the hard thing in a demo – because it is not really anyone’s specific responsibility.

Microsoft has also fallen a little into this two camp trap. Microsoft has a great CRM development team. They have a great ERP development team. They do not have a team that is dedicated to the grey area of making these tools work together. Microsoft is also still struggling with understanding the mid market – in that any integration function cannot require a software developer. The mid market will not accept that as an option.

The great news out of this is that eOne Solutions DOES have a team that is dedicated to making CRM and GP work together – seamlessly. This team has developed a highly configurable tool to ensure your CRM and your GP can talk together in whatever way you want. We know your CRM is customized, we know your GP is configured just for your business. No out of the box integration is going to work to tie these two tools together.

At eOne we understand mid market companies. We don’t understand the business system needs of tiny companies. We don’t try and understand the business needs of behemoth companies. We do know that to tie two highly configurable systems together – you need a highly configurable integration tool – aka SmartConnect.

The Demo

Fact One: We have a great tool for integrating GP and CRM – SmartConnect

Fact Two: It is tough for a presales consultant to set up an environment that is always ready to demo – that shows CRM and GP talking both ways.

Fact Three: There is absolutely no excuse for any presales consultant to NOT show this integration.

eOne has built a demonstration environment that lets ALL of our resellers demo GP integrated to CRM anytime and anywhere. The eOne Sandbox. There are no excuses anymore. The awesome integrated demo is at your fingertips.

Everyone who works for an eOne reseller has access to the Sandbox directly from any browser – FREE 24×7. All presales consultants, all functional consultants and all account managers can demo Dynamics GP integrated to Dynamics CRM – both ways.

When you connect to the Sandbox you are opening an environment where:

  1. GP 2015 web client is installed and open in a browser ready to go
  2. CRM 2015 is installed and open in a browser ready to go

We have multiple integrations ready to show and each has a step by step demo script to allow you to show this to your prospect.

  1. CRM Accounts to GP Customers (New Records)
  2. GP Customer to CRM Accounts (Updates)
  3. GP address updates to CRM
  4. CRM address updates to GP
  5. Items and pricing from GP to CRM (Incudes UOM, Territory, Payment terms etc)
  6. Orders from CRM to GP
  7. Invoices from GP to CRM

There are more integration points for you to explore, but the above ones should certainly get you through any demo and allow you to confidently show off the power of an integrated Dynamics Solutions.

So NETSUITE look out. If I ever hear a GP reseller say again that they lost out to NetSuite because they had an integrated CRM solution I may just explode. Microsoft Dynamics has an integrated CRM and ERP that is way more powerful than anything NetSuite can offer. The only difference is that in their wisdom – Microsoft let eOne Solutions build that tool as they knew we would be able to nail that for the mid market.

So the challenge to all eOne resellers is to get on board with the Sandbox. Use it to sell more product. Use it to beat your competitors. Use it to kick some butt. We have invested many months of work to bring you this great free resource – so please go and leverage every part of the eOne sandbox.