The CRM Integration Challenge

The goal of a 360-degree view of the customer has been around for decades, but few companies have actually attained it. Providing a complete view requires not just integration of sales, marketing, and service data, but integration of data from other internal applications and external data sources. In analyzing the last two years of data from customer relationship management (CRM) ROI case studies, Nucleus found that while 60 percent of companies have invested in some CRM integration, fewer than one in three have extended integration efforts beyond CRM itself. Although the costs are significant (the average company spent 3.5 times their annual license costs on extended integration), the benefits are clear: integration drove increased productivity increases across sales, service, and operations and a 20 to 30 percent growth in business. The challenge is bringing down cost and risk.