GoldMine, AddonSoftware Partner to Integrate CRM, ERP
Integrating CRM with ERP can boost the performance of CRM functions like lead generation, quoting and customer support, as ERP offers real-time access to business data that affects customers. So it's not surprising that many providers of ERP software, including Microsoft, SAP and Sage, provide CRM options.
GoldMine, which has sold CRM solutions mostly to small and midsize companies (SMBs) for 25 years, this week announced a partnership with AddonSoftware, an ERP provider that also primarily serves the SMB market.
“This partnership fulfills a need that we've heard from our customers that they want. We're excited about what this opportunity represents for our partner channel, as well as our large user base,” said Nico Spence, CEO of Basis International, the developer of Addon's software.
There is a growing awareness that sales and marketing and finance functions need to work more closely with each other and share the same database, Spence said. “In the past perhaps it was OK for sales and marketing to be somewhat siloed from finance and accounting. But integration points are now more critical.”
The partnership “combines two best-of-breed solutions with similar value propositions of affordability and relatively easy setup,” said Paul Petersen, general manager of GoldMine, adding that both systems are built on Windows-based architectures that can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud on a single hosting subscription.
That kind of easy interoperability is a key benefit, Petersen said, because interoperability can be a thorny issue for companies using multiple software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.
“If you host both of ours as the same product, you can easily move files from on-premise to cloud and from cloud to on-premise,” he said. “We are seeing a resurgence of companies wanting to get all of their apps in one place.”
Daniel Ervin, CEO of Phoenix Fire Inc., a business development agency that works with both GoldMine and AddonSoftware, tapped the ability to scale as a key advantage of the combined solution, especially for SMBs that may be outgrowing their current accounting and sales/marketing solutions.
“They are starting to look for apps that can grow with them,” Ervin said. “With GoldMine and AddonSoftware, you can start as a very small company and grow to a huge enterprise and use the same app with no switching required.”
“We believe that by combining our respective strengths, we will be in a better position than our competitors who try to cover both bases but not necessarily to the full extent,” said Spence, adding that competitors include Sage, Microsoft and other vendors that can provide a single, integrated solution for CRM and ERP.
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