Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help you serve your customers better and build customer loyalty through your incentive, marketing, and public relations activities. CRM systems are powerful tools to help you achieve success as an Enterprise. Several powerful Internet and server-based CRM systems are now available to small, medium, and large companies.

Implementing a CRM solution takes planning and work. Good CRM solutions will touch every aspect of your company: Sales, marketing, customer support, product planning, operations, and administration. It will also impact your IT department because every CRM project requires integration with existing back office databases.

The Alliance CRM Integration for System i solution provides everything you need to integrate your CRM application with existing ERP systems: software, services, training, and project management.

CRM integration with back office ERP applications

Your ERP applications on your System i contain critical information about your customers and your business. Customer names and addresses, key customer contacts, order status, inventory levels, shipping status, and similar types of information. Your CRM solution will need real-time access to this information in order to deliver the maximum benefit to your organization.

All web and server CRM applications provide a means of integrating with external ERP systems. Almost all CRM applications use the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and web services as the mechanism for the integration. XML is the standard Internet format for data exchange (as opposed to HTML which is used for web page information display). Web services includes all of the communications technologies needed to send and receive XML documents. These include HTTP and HTTPS client and server applications and appropriate security controls.

The Alliance CRM Integration for System i solution provides you with all of the software you need to achieve CRM integration using XML and web services. No additional IBM or third-party software or hardware is needed for CRM integration.

System i integration using XML and web services

The IBM System i is one of the most productive server platforms in the world. It is scalable, reliable, easy to program, and contains all of the system features you need in one package. This is one reason why there is a wide selection of software and applications for the system. However, the System i, like many database systems, is not friendly to the XML data format. Deploying web services and processing XML data can involve expensive and time-consuming programming resources. This is one of the main reasons CRM projects flounder and experience implementation delays.

The Alliance CRM integration solutions helps solve this problem by providing you with advanced software that handles the conversion of XML data to and from IBM System i DB2 data formats.

Alliance is a turn-key solution

The Alliance CRM integration solutions takes a complete project view of your CRM integration project. To be successful you need more than a software tool – you need a project team experienced in XML and web services, CRM solutions, System i application development, project management, and on-going technical support.

The Alliance CRM Integration for System i solution provides:

Software (XML translation, web servers, web clients, etc.)
Services (installation, configuration, development)
Coordination (CRM vendor, network, internal IT, ERP vendor)
Training
Project management
Go-live support

By taking responsibility for the integration project your IT team can leverage its knowledge of your core ERP systems, and you maximize project success. When the project is finished you will have achieved fast implementation using industry standard web services data formats. You will be positioned to move forward with additional CRM and non-CRM web integration projects.

Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0

The Microsoft solution for CRM is called Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and runs on the Microsoft Windows server platform. It is anticipated that a new hosted option will be available in 2007 to provide an Internet platform for CRM. The Alliance CRM Integration for System i solution supports Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 and Internet hosted solutions. We will work with your Microsoft partner to insure a successful integration project with your System i ERP applications. [Read more … ]

Request information about Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration with your System i.

Integration with SalesForce.com

SalesForce.com is one of the best known Internet CRM solutions. It provides sophisticated sales management, customer support, and marketing solutions. SalesForce.com provides ready-made integration features using XML and web services. The Alliance CRM integration team has extensive experience with SalesForce integration and can solve the complex security requirements of SalesForce.com. [Read more … ]

Request information about SalesForce.com CRM integration with your System i.

Integration with RightNow

RightNow provides a powerful CRM application and consulting services to help customers achieve success with their CRM projects. The Alliance integration team has worked with IBM System i customers to integrate their ERP information with the RightNow CRM system (read the Bass Pro case study). The Alliance team can help you through a successful implementation with RightNow CRM. [Read more … ]

Request information about RightNow CRM integration with your System i.

How to get more information

You can request information or a free technical assessment by using the links on the left, or calling (800) 357-8971. International: +1 360 357 8971. Or by email to info @ patownsend.com.