Customer Data Integration or CDI is regarded as the process of combining customer information from various customer data resources, of an organization. The information resources may vary company to company like shipping process information, sales process information, service process information and bookkeeping process information. Customer data integration is a complex tasks made easy by advanced customer data integration systems.

Customer data integration involves a collection of technologies and processes to track, store and share customer data. The major application of customer data integration procedures are in customer relationship management (CRM). CDI provides timely, complete and accurate analytics and reports that help an enterprise to enhance its CRM practices. The basic step in the customer data integration, the business automation, makes a company more flexible, faster and reliable.

The specific software programs of the customer relationship management solutions are CRM based software programs. These software programs help a CDI solution to identify each customer individually. These software programs track particular customer’s preferences, activities, transactions, number of visits, contact details etc. CDI systems provide accurate reports about each customer, and help in finding good customers. This feature helps the companies to understand each customer individually and design customized plans for each of them.

The major technologies followed by today’s customer data integration systems are Enterprise Information Integration (EII), Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) and Data Quality (DQ) tools. ETL technology enables a system to transfer large volumes of data in batch-mode. EII help in the sharing of queries among various devices. And DQ tools are responsible for tracking information resources. A range of other advanced technologies are also used to increase the modularity of the CDI systems.

The advantages of using customer data integration solutions over manual solutions include:

1.Fully automated business procedure.

2.Better customer contact management and lead management.

3.Specific customer database management.

4.Enhancement in specific marketing programs like direct marketing and e-mail marketing.

5.Easy sales tracking.

6.Elimination of duplicate and false data entry.

7.Time savings by automated processes.

8.Easy access to all data resources.

CDI solutions also help in budget preparing, trouble shooting and activity management processes.

The popular options with customer data integration solutions are open source CDI software systems and hosted or on demand CDI services. Open source CDI solutions come in standard formats and permit you to customize them according to your business needs. Thus these systems allow you to stay flexible with your business strategy in the changing business environment. Today there are many CDI software vendors, often CRM software vendors, offering open source or pre-customized CDI software solutions. The thing to be remembered when purchasing is making sure that company has enough technical assistance to customize the software.

Hosted or on demand CDI solutions are web-based customer data integration service provided by a CDI provider. This is one example of Software as a Service or SaaS. There are many on-demand CRM service providers who offer all types of customer data integration services, who provide you CDI services for a low monthly fee. The benefits of on demand CDI services include global access, elimination of maintenance cost, relief from mental pressure and reduction in enterprise working capital. Recently one another alternative known as open source hosted CDI service, which combines the merits of both solutions, is becoming rapidly popular.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems provide a formalized system gathering, organizing, maintaining and manipulating customer and contact information. With an effective Microsoft Dynamics CRM in place, business owners are provided with a powerful tool to successfully manage and develop their business.

Why a business should adopt and implement a Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be readily appreciated by considering some of the benefits provided. An effective Dynamics CRM, properly implemented and adopted will greatly help to maximize sales and reduce costs and time while management who have a better view of what is actually going on a lot faster than without a Dynamics CRM, are far better placed to manage the risk to their business.

Managing the sales cycle is expensive and time-consuming, so knowing where you are with a contact or set of customers is important if you intend to maximize the results of your business generation activities. A Microsoft Dynamics CRM will provide accessible information at your fingertips which means that a business owner can look at the “Big Picture” or macroscopic view while at the same time break business performance down to see what activities and customers are contributing to the bottom line. This allows business owners and managers to see where to concentrate their efforts to maximize sales and minimize costs.

Generating new business is the most expensive part of the sales cycle, and because a Microsoft Dynamics CRM system provides the ability to categorize contacts and identify which are suitable prospects for a particular sales and marketing campaign, a business can most effectively deploy resources. Knowing which prospects are likely to buy, when they are likely to do so and where the prospects are geographically will help your sales team to maximize their efforts, reduce wasted time and money, and provide a greater return on the investment of time and money in acquiring that customer base.

Existing customers are most likely to buy from you again, and because a Microsoft Dynamics CRM system will provide a business manager with the ability to manage, maintain and develop the client relationship this means that a business is likely to generate greater revenues from understanding a customers requirements better and produce overall cost savings as a result of improved customer retention rather than chasing new ones.

As a Microsoft Dynamics CRM software solution provides a repository for all your client information, including sales history, seasonal variations in sales, and improved ability to forecast turnover from repeat sales, business planning and goal setting is simplified and there is an additional benefit in saving staff and management time searching for information which is readily available. Reducing the time required planning your business activity and development allows more time to be spent on generating business and managing activity where the sales revenue is actually created – with your customers.

A Microsoft Dynamics CRM will provide a business owner with the ability to see at a glance what is happening with their sales and customers. We live and operate in a fast changing world where trends and tastes change, sometimes overnight, and the ability to see how these variations affect our overall business performance allows management to quickly adapt to changes in trading conditions which under more traditional reporting methods may not be observed for some time. With a Microsoft Dynamics CRM providing accurate and up-to-date business information on results and activity, business management is better placed to take advantage of trading opportunities while also minimizing business risk by alerting management of adverse trading conditions.

Finally, an often overlooked benefit of all Customer Relationship Software is found when looking at implementing such a solution to begin with.

Implementation of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution invariably forces business owners and management to reconsider their business and how they are managing it, not to mention the benefit that is derived from a thorough review of the overall business goals and objectives. Often this has not been done for some time, if at all, and considering how a solution will be tailored to fit the business frequently breeds the realization that things could be managed better.

This doesn’t derive from the customer relationship software itself, but from planning how to implement and adopt such a solution; owners and management are compelled to confront their current business practices and perhaps revise them. This is probably the greatest insidious benefit to be derived from a Customer Relationship Management solution for a business.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems provide a formalized system gathering, organizing, maintaining and manipulating customer and contact information.  With an effective Microsoft Dynamics CRM in place, business owners are provided with a powerful tool to successfully manage and develop their business.

Why a business should adopt and implement a Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be readily appreciated by considering some of the benefits provided.  An effective Dynamics CRM, properly implemented and adopted will greatly help to maximize sales and reduce costs and time while management who have a better view of what is actually going on a lot faster than without a Dynamics CRM, are far better placed to manage the risk to their business.

Managing the sales cycle is expensive and time-consuming, so knowing where you are with a contact or set of customers is important if you intend to maximize the results of your business generation activities.  A Microsoft Dynamics CRM will provide accessible information at your fingertips which means that a business owner can look at the “Big Picture” or macroscopic view while at the same time break business performance down to see what activities and customers are contributing to the bottom line.  This allows business owners and managers to see where to concentrate their efforts to maximize sales and minimize costs.

Generating new business is the most expensive part of the sales cycle, and because a Microsoft Dynamics CRM system provides the ability to categorize contacts and identify which are suitable prospects for a particular sales and marketing campaign, a business can most effectively deploy resources.  Knowing which prospects are likely to buy, when they are likely to do so and where the prospects are geographically will help your sales team to maximize their efforts, reduce wasted time and money, and provide a greater return on the investment of time and money in acquiring that customer base.

Existing customers are most likely to buy from you again, and because a Microsoft Dynamics CRM system will provide a business manager with the ability to manage, maintain and develop the client relationship this means that a business is likely to generate greater revenues from understanding a customers requirements better and produce overall cost savings as a result of improved customer retention rather than chasing new ones.

As a Microsoft Dynamics CRM software solution provides a repository for all your client information, including sales history, seasonal variations in sales, and improved ability to forecast turnover from repeat sales, business planning and goal setting is simplified and there is an additional benefit in saving staff and management time searching for information which is readily available.  Reducing the time required planning your business activity and development allows more time to be spent on generating business and managing activity where the sales revenue is actually created – with your customers.

A Microsoft Dynamics CRM will provide a business owner with the ability to see at a glance what is happening with their sales and customers.  We live and operate in a fast changing world where trends and tastes change, sometimes overnight, and the ability to see how these variations affect our overall business performance allows management to quickly adapt to changes in trading conditions which under more traditional reporting methods may not be observed for some time.  With a Microsoft Dynamics CRM providing accurate and up-to-date business information on results and activity, business management is better placed to take advantage of trading opportunities while also minimizing business risk by alerting management of adverse trading conditions.

Finally, an often overlooked benefit of all Customer Relationship Software is found when looking at implementing such a solution to begin with.  

Implementation of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution invariably forces business owners and management to reconsider their business and how they are managing it, not to mention the benefit that is derived from a thorough review of the overall business goals and objectives.  Often this has not been done for some time, if at all, and considering how a solution will be tailored to fit the business frequently breeds the realization that things could be managed better.  

This doesn’t derive from the customer relationship software itself, but from planning how to implement and adopt such a solution; owners and management are compelled to confront their current business practices and perhaps revise them.  This is probably the greatest insidious benefit to be derived from a Customer Relationship Management solution for a business.

First of all what does CRM stand for?  CRM = Customer Relationship Management.

The concept of CRM has been around for a long time. The original form of CRM was a manual card system kept by a sales person that usually sat on the sales person’s desk or alongside them in the car.  These client cards sets were very valuable to the sales person as this is where they kept important customer information such customer contact details, key contacts in the company, a running commentary on their activities, personal and product preferences, buying patterns, business connections and so forth.  Each card was a dossier on each client.  To successful, well managed sales people, their client cards were gold.

However, often times, this vital data resided with the sales person alone. The company, the sales person worked for, did not have ready access to this important information and when the sales person left the company more often than not so did the client information, client relationship and sales did as well.

The ‘softwarising’ of CRM for businesses is seen as a major breakthrough in being able to capture important client information and better manage client relationships.  CRM promises faster customer service at lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, better customer retention and ultimately customer loyalty and more sales.  However many companies still believe that CRM is simply software, or technology and the full benefits of CRM are not being fully realised by business.  CRM is much more than just a data-mining tool.

CRM is not (just) technology.

CRM is a business strategy!

Your CRM has the potential to and should be your corporate memory.  It can be the  archeological record of your business.  In fact, if introduced and applied correctly, one of the most significant benefits of having and using a CRM in your business is being able to fully realise and map the true value of your clients as company assets.  Besides the obvious benefits to you and your business, if ever you chose to sell your business, having a CRM with all this valuable information tracked and mapped can be valued and sold for premium.

This trail of information becomes a real asset in itself. A potential buyer can see your business in real client terms and understand the value of the client relationships to the business.  Therefore instead of the wisdom and knowledge going out the door with the previous owner it can be captured and retained with the new owners to be further cultivated and developed.

NB: Not  all data is good data. You must make sure you have the right information in place.  Too many CRM’s are filled with rubbish data and the wrong stuff making them a liability not an asset.

As a CEO, you can’t make the right decisions if you don’t have the right data/information foundations in place.  If you are going to get the best benefits from a CRM strategy and CRM tools you need to know how to you are going to align your key business objectives between your clients, sales people, suppliers and the rest of your business so every piece of relevant information and action adds value to the client fulfillment process.

The interconnectedness of clients to your business can begin to be truly mapped and you will then see how everyone in your business can affect the retention and growth of your clients, not just your sales people.

According to Mark Parker, MD of www.SmartSelling.com and expert in CRM’s and Customer Systems:

“Sales reps often represent the “face” of your company. In order for them to do their part in driving outstanding sales results, they should be empowered to put their best foot forward when representing their company. To do this, a Sales Automation or CRM needs to be in tune with their needs.  Putting their best foot forward is going to mean many things.“

Further to this I would like to add that a CRM should also be in tune with your customers needs helping them have the best experience they can have with you.

What does an effective CRM system look like?

An effective CRM system should be what your strategy needs and wants it to be.  These days you can get access to open source CRM software where you can configure what you want in your CRM so you do not have to be tied to proprietary CRM’s that cannot be customised to your needs.  Also CRM’s do not have to be prohibitively expensive either. Many people have put off getting CRM’s in the past due to their high cost and focus on big corporations.  But now good CRM’s systems are available for SME’s and home based businesses at very cost effective rates.  For instance we use SugarCRM at Barrett which is an open source system we can configure to suit our business needs.
This means you need to think carefully about what you want your CRM system to do and be and who you partner with to make it work for you.
A good place to start is to:

Know your business  strategy and key outcomes you want to achieve and work backwards from there. Know your customer, their needs, wants and motives and your path to market Appreciate the length, width and depth of the relationships between the customer and your organisation Understand how you properly manage of all interactions with your customer Know what your sales and service people need to do make sales happen in your business. Aim to build a business system that manages prospects, clients and projects.

Look at what data, behaviours, and outcomes you want to track:

Client data, sales person activity data, product sales data, effectiveness of marketing initiatives including your website, direct mail/email campaigns, etc. What behaviours do you want to encourage and reinforce in your sales and service teams as well as your clients and prospects? What do you want to measure by way of lead and lag sales indicators? How do you want to communicate data internally and externally?

Important point: you do not want you CRM to turn your salespeople into glorified desk jockeys.  We need to make sure any CRM is easy to use, doesn’t take necessary time away from vital interpersonal sales activities.  If you think your CRM can replace your sales team you will fall short in your efforts.  If your business needs to be in personal contact in some way with your clients you need your CRM to enhance these relationships not replace them.
Here are some ways a CRM system can serve you well:

Provide immediate insight into prospect and customer leads originating from any channel Provide deep visibility into the sales pipeline and opportunity details which quickly produce accurate sales forecasts. Allow for a consistent, informed, and personalised customer communication approach i.e.  automated emails relevant to the specific customers Give sales people and everyone in your business access to a consolidated view of the customer across your organisation – this will allow everyone in the organisation to know how they can help play their part in taking control of every opportunity and managing it to a successful conclusion Encourage, enforce and track best-practice sales methodologies you want in your sales  teams i.e. logging of Lead Indicator Activities such as: # of prospecting calls made, # of client meetings had; # of real deals in the pipeline, # of sales made: # of cross sales made, # of sales made with new clients, # of sales made with existing clients, # of follow customer service enquiries, # of service calls, etc. Encourage, enforce and track best-practice service methodologies you want in your customer service and support teams i.e. logging of Lead and Lag Indicator Activities such as # of follow customer service calls made post sales, # of service calls made, # of customer service calls and complaints received, etc. Monitor and map effectiveness of have automated sales and marketing activities that are specific to the customers and markets Steamline and automate those customer activities that can go online i.e. confirmation emails, automatic emails sent out at periodic intervals for things like renewals for instance Map work in progress with clients and staff allocated to client projects Have the ability to integrate with your website and keep track of web activity Support your entire frontline sales and sales lead management team with the right information they need to quickly and efficiently fulfill all of their daily requirements. Deliver knowledge at the point of action Keeps vital customer data in the business whether the sales person stays of leaves thus creating a valuable company asset.

Word of caution: Before you even think about integrating Twitter or Facebook into your data mix and CRM, which is a hot topic at the moment, make sure your current data is clean and relevant because if it is not then you will be piling more garbage on an already big garbage heap and there’s no value in that.

Remember CRM systems are tools that should support, enhance and grow the customer relationship by giving your sales team and others in your business access to vital information they can act upon with purpose and in the easiest manner possible.

A CRM should not be an imposition on anyone, a CRM should be a part of your vision to continually improving the relationships with your customer, your sales team and everyone in your business.

CRM is a strategy and way of life not a piece of technology.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software provides as a potential boost to the customer service levels. In this process, it increases productivity and ensures customer satisfaction. Use of such software can help in assisting call center units including shorter duration calls.

It helps in reducing the hold time and also decreases the amount of the misrouted calls. In a given spectrum of contact center customer service, the need for the CRM holds the prime importance. It is CRM that offers a call center with a comprehensive package.

With customer relationship management, call centers enable a productive and appropriate usage of the customer information. This is how it helps to build up a better and advanced relationship with the customers.

The CRM software offers the contact center professionals with a range of valuable and precious customer data. This advanced application can help professionals to gain information regarding the customer history and thus making him or her aware of the customer before a call.

Use of such advanced software helps agents to be a position to understand and know about the customer preference. In the sales sector offering any added information stands significant. This enables the customer databases to be well-organized and up-to-dated at all times.

In times of carrying forward the follow up actions, customer relationship management software is of substantial use. Such is the software that after every initial call, all subsequent follow up actions will be essentially carried out with a lot ease.

The software enables the call center professionals to have a close look at the given call details whenever there arises any query. On the other hand, the customer relationship management software also helps to carry forward the lead management functions.

With the help of this software, business leads can also be identified and can be assigned to the specified employees. This in turn also results in the considerable reduction in the lead loss. To sum up, the given use of the software will enable the customer care employees to perform diverse business functions with a lot convenience.

With less damage on account of its user-friendly elements, the CRM software leaves less strain. All the more, less training programs are initiated. It reduces less training with its state-of-the-art techniques. Use of advanced CRM features also enables call center customer service units to examine the client requirements accordingly. This is one essential means to offer clients things that they actually need. The CRM also facilitates the contact center professionals and their managers or supervisors to prepare their performance reports with clarity and speed.

Next time when you look for innovative options to improve the overall performance of your customer service unit, make sure that you include CRM as an effective tool that ensures effectiveness and proficiency at work.

The benefits of lead management software and marketing automation systems are not fully appreciated by many businesses that are making only partial use of their customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Many businesses that use CRM tools such as Salesforce find that, while their CRM system is reasonably effective in managing their interaction between the business and prospective or actual clients, the tools used within the system tend to be fragmented in their use and are not being leveraged sufficiently to enable the development of an automated system.

Each business department tends to implement its own tools for its own needs, rather than focusing on an integrated CRM system that encompasses the entire business. If this sounds familiar to you, and perhaps describes your own business, then tools such as lead management software and sales force automation (SFA) systems can be employed to streamline your entire marketing and sales process and enable your staff to spend their time focusing on their clients and prospects rather than on maintaining the systems.

Too much staff is needed to manage an inefficient marketing funnel that filters too few leads into prospects, and too few of these are converted to clients. It would a lot easier for you to maximum the potential of your leads if you had a more effective method of nurturing your leads with the information, data and personal service that they need to decide to become clients.

A lead management system can score leads according to selected criteria and nurture and manage them during the process of converting them to clients or customers. Once a futuristic concept, you now have a wide choice of lead nurturing tools and lead management software available that can integrate with your existing CRM system.

Very often, sales and marketing fail to work together, yet one is almost worthless without the other. At some point the two must interface within the pipeline, the highest qualified leads being passed over to sales to convert into customers. Marketing automation systems can ensure that the two combine in your business into a powerful marketing and sales machine that can generate, nurture and convert leads much more effectively than relying on manual systems or personalities.

By scoring your leads at each stage in the sales funnel, a tipping point can be recognized as the right time to pass the lead to sales, and an automated system makes it easier for you to refine your lead scoring model to identify that point more accurately.

Response triggers can be set to automate email deliveries or to alert salespeople to make personal contact. Landing pages can easily be generated to collect the additional information that will enable marketers to offer more relevant information to leads, such as White Papers that can be offered at certain stages within the funnel. Marketing and ROI reports can be generated to analyze the effectiveness of the program.

By being provided with the highly relevant information that will offer solutions to their problems, and so guide them through each stage of the buying process, leads will become prospects who will regard their human contacts as trusted advisors. This is an important factor that makes the entire marketing process a lot easier for sales.

Lead management software is an important component of effective marketing automation systems that can integrate seamlessly with your existing CRM software. The result is a package that not only ensures that leads are leveraged to their maximum profitability, but also provides detailed reports on the various aspects of the marketing process and ROI of your business.

If you feel that your marketing and sales units are fragmented, and that there appears to be very little connection between sales, marketing and distribution, then a good CRM system with marketing automation and lead management software will likely resolve this situation for you and maximize the way your leads are being qualified and leveraged through your marketing and sales funnel.

There are CRM system on the market now that combine all of these functions, but if you are already running CRM software, then the software can easily be integrated with this and your new system could be up and running within an hour.

It will enable you to generate more leads, nurture these by providing necessary information or personal contact when needed and identify when they are ready to buy. Marketing automation not only generates demand but will also manage your marketing funnel and provide all the reports you need to ensure the effective implementation and lead management needed by a successful modern business.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has long been an essential software solution for every company that is serious about its customer base. Here are ten key benefits associated with CRM if you are yet to be convinced.

Centralised data

By far the greatest benefit of CRM software is the way in which it brings all your customer data into one place, for everyone to access. Having customer data in a host of discreet locations including excel spreadsheets, e-mail archives and so forth makes it impossible to accurately share customer information.

Simplified sales process    

CRM software is excellent at workflow automation. The steps involved in selling can easily be supported and structured using CRM software that connects with your firm’s existing order fulfilment software. When a customer calls, your salesperson will have access to current quotes and the customer’s profile which makes it far easier to negotiate and complete a sale.

Service and support

Good CRM software will allow all your staff to access relevant information relating to a customer, from purchase history to the current equipment they use as well as previous support queries. With this knowledge your team will be equipped to render improved service and support.

Automated marketing

The detailed information about your clients can be “mined” for marketing campaigns and be analysed for further selling opportunities – if your team has access to it. CRM systems are also essential if your business uses e-mail marketing as data is easy to extract and good quality CRM software will be able to connect to your e-mail marketing solutions or may offer components of its own.

Telemarketing

Your outbound sales team needs rapid access to the data records of every customer. Calling off a spreadsheet list or a pack of business cards is simply not effective. It is also easy to connect automated call centre software to an enterprise CRM solution.

Reporting

Sales trends and forecasts are readily available through CRM software. Not only can you easily determine who buys what and why but you can also analyse the performance of your sales team as well as the relative sales performance of different products and services.

Data backup

Data in several locations is difficult to duplicate for backup purposes and you are unlikely to be able to protect everything. On the other hand a central CRM database is far easier to backup. If it is an online CRM system you don’t need to be concerned at all as the provider should handle backups.

Security

CRM software provides you with a solid layer of security. Whereas data that is stored on your office PCs and laptops or in paper form is vulnerable to theft, a centrally stored CRM database is far easier to secure. Once again, online CRM systems are secured by the provider on your behalf.

Scalability

As your business grows, your solutions need to keep pace. An integrated CRM solution gives you the ability to configure and adapt your customer database over time and if your business branches out to an additional location or market, the new element of the business will also have access to relevant customer data.

Systems integration

Enterprise CRM software can integrate with your existing network infrastructure and any legacy applications you may have – other systems in your company that deal with customer data, for example your accounting software or, in the case of larger organisations, your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Visit the Workbooks website for more information on web based CRM systems.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a system which integrates various business data in a single database and provides cross function reporting on click of a single button. Earlier ERP was made for large organizations but, now it is made for medium and even for small organizations. In this global competitive market, organizations need to upgrade with latest technologies. Most of the large organizations are using enterprise resource planning system. To deal with those large organization SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) need to work on a similar type of technologies. In this case, importance of ERP system for SMEs increases.

Of course, there are lots of business benefits of enterprise software. Apart from all other basic benefits, enterprise software gives an information system with three important capabilities i.e.

1. Consistency and reliability of business data across the organization
2. Streamlined transaction processing within and outside organization
3. Provides operations level reporting on a click of a button

These capabilities, basic and important as they are, ensure that organizations are ready for specific solutions that improve overall performance. The areas that will increase the basic ERP requirements are like supply chain management (SCM) with electronic collaboration between supplier and customer, customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI), product data management, complete product life cycle (PLC) management, inventory and warehouse management using RFID tools. For these applications, ERP system becomes the substratum, a kind of gateway to expert functions. That is, enterprise software is a sine qua non for other applications.

In fact, the latest trend is that with basic enterprise resource planning software, tailor-made system is given by ERP companies. ERP vendors are speeding-up to integrate most of these additional capabilities. This type of customized or tailor-made enterprise system is easy to install and implement for SMEs. It also takes less time to implement and chances of implementation failure are lesser.

Copyright © Nick Mutt, All Rights Reserved. If you want to use this article on your website or in your ezine, make all the urls (links) active.

Read Benefits of ERP and Definition of ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning system. Also Know How to Select ERP Software for your organization for successful implementation.

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Usually, an organization thinks to implement ERP (enterprise resource planning) software to align business objective with latest technology solutions, to enhance customer confidence and stakeholder commitment, to optimum utilization of organization’s resources and assets. Typically, an organization is looking for good enterprise resource planning software with advance features and functions.

Benefits of ERP Software

ERP system introduces efficiency and improvement of its business processes. Good enterprise software helps you to achieve transparency and availability of data across all business functions. It gives right information at the right time to the right people for effective decision making. This decision would be based on accurate information, which will give positive result and increase productivity.

ERP software helps you to optimize your human resource management and asset management. It also improves financial management. Trail balance, balance sheet, cash in hand, cash in bank, top supplier, top customer, ABC analysis, dead stock, WIP (work in progress) and other important reports are ready at any point of time. It helps in achieving better efficiency in organization reporting. ERP software streamlines the supply chain management and improves customer relationship management.

Enterprise resource planning software ensures data security and data scalability: organization can customize the enterprise software according to their requirements. It adopts systems that address changing technologies. It gives better ROI (return on investment). Organization can increase turnover with same human resource. There is a misconception that, ERP is for IT department and they will get more benefits, but it is not true. During implementation and after go-live, IT department responsibility is higher than other department.

Proper training gives better output from the new system. Lack of proper training to user results wrong entry and create problem. Top management should understand the need of detailed user training. Ultimately, user is going to use this enterprise resource planning software.

Copyright © Nick Mutt, All Rights Reserved. If you want to use this article on your website or in your ezine, make all the urls (links) active.

Read Benefits of ERP and Definition of ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning system. Also Know How to Select ERP Software for your organization for successful implementation.

Although a great deal of media attention has been given to the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act and how it benefits individual taxpayers, less information has been shared about the tax incentives that this law delivers to businesses.

For construction companies, there are some very useful provisions within  the Act, primarily around depreciation deductions for new software and equipment purchases. But time is running out for you to take advantage of them: Purchases must be made by December 31, 2008 to qualify for the maximum depreciation allowances.

To help you sort through the specifics of the Economic Stimulus Act, Construction Partner talked with Kevin Thurman, a CPA  with ThomasYork, LLP, a California-based  CPA firm that specializes in construction.

According to Thurman, there are two parts to the Stimulus Act’s deprecation features.

Part one involves revisions to Section 179, a longstanding tax law that allows businesses to deduct a specified amount of equipment purchases each year. Part two involves bonus depreciation on equipment purchases made in 2008.

Section 179 Depreciation
Under Section 179, businesses can expense up to 0K of new and
used asset purchases made in 2008. (This is double the 2007 deduction of
5K.) Qualified purchases include equipment, machinery, furniture and even
construction-specific software (as well as the hardware needed to run that software).

However, Section 179 isn’t without limits. “One caveat of this tax benefit,” says Thurman, “is that you can’t buy more than 0K in qualifying purchases without losing some of the benefit.” Making multiple heavy equipment purchases, for example, would likely put a contractor above the 0K limit and they would forfeit that initial 0K deduction. On the other hand, contractors that buy 0K or less in qualifying purchases would get  to deduct those purchases in full on their 2008 tax return.
Bonus Depreciation

The new bonus depreciation allowance is where the Stimulus Act gets interesting. “The bonus depreciation provides an additional 50 percent deduction on new purchases that can be taken in conjunction with Section 179,” explains Thurman. (The bonus depreciation is available even if purchases exceed the Section 179 0K limit.) Here’s how the bonus depreciation works:

Let’s say you make software and equipment purchases in 2008 totaling 0K.

The first 0K of depreciation deduction comes right off the top, which leaves 0K remaining of your original purchases.

You’re now allowed to deduct an additional 50 percent, which would give you another 0K in deductions.

In addition, you’re also allowed to take your regular multi-year depreciation deductions if applicable. In this example, regular depreciation would apply to the final 0K.

“The end result is an incredible tax deduction,” states Thurman. “If you’re considering purchases in excess of 0K, even though you won’t be able totake advantage of Section 179’s 0K deduction, you may want to go ahead with those purchases in 2008 because of the 50 percent bonus depreciation benefit you’ll get up front.”

Software and Other Purchases

Although software purchases are typically depreciated over three years,
the 2008 tax provisions make this an especially good year to upgrade your construction accounting solution to a program such as Construction Partner, especially if you’ve been struggling with the lack of functionality in generic software like QuickBooks®. In most cases, you’ll get a 100% tax deduction in 2008 for your software purchase and hardware upgrades.

Other business benefits of the Economic Stimulus Act involve vehicle purchases and leasehold improvements. The new tax laws provide some incentives around the purchase of “luxury” automobiles and “heavy” vehicles. (Sport utility vehicles are in a tax class by themselves.) In addition, if you lease your office space, you might be eligible for tax breaks if you make improvements to that space.

Special Cautions for Contractors

Before you run out and stimulate the economy with your new purchases, however, you need to consider what impact these purchases might have on your operations. Issues to consider include:

Bonding: “A construction company is very dependent upon its ability to secure bonding,” explains Thurman. “One of the major things that a surety company will look at is your cash flow. You need to balance how much cash you spend or borrow to buy new equipment with what you leave in reserve. Depleting your cash on hand or having too many liabilities on your balance sheet can hurt your bonding capacity.”

Fiscal Year: “Bonus depreciation applies to purchases made from January 1 through December 31,” cautions Thurman. “Even if your fiscal year is March to March, for instance, to get the maximum benefit you still need to make your purchases before December 31, 2008.”

The best way to ensure that your business gets the most benefit from all of the provisions in the Economic Stimulus Act is to consult with a professional that specializes in construction accounting and taxation, like Thurman and the other CPAs at ThomasYork.

“The bottom line,” states Thurman, “is that you shouldn’t make your final decision to purchase new equipment based solely on the tax break. If implementing new construction accounting software will give you greater control over costs and help your staff work more efficiently, then that purchase is absolutely a good business decision – no matter what the tax incentive may be.”

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