For example introducing a new on demand CRM product to support the roll out of a new sales force while relying on an existing enterprise resource planning system (ERP) for order fulfillment and accounting, could have disastrous consequences with customer orders and invoices.

In this set up, data stored in one system is likely not to be synchronized and shared with another. Organizations risk having outdated or even inaccurate information relayed to sales personnel, according to the report.

To remedy this, the report said, a standards-based integration approach has to be applied across all areas that the CRM implementation will touch. The CRM system has to touch three fundamental tiers of integration:

Data

The most basic form of integration involves the data layer via Web services, batch integration and data import and export. Critical information such as customer and product data needs to be synchronized in real-time or accessed regardless of where the data resides to ensure users obtain the latest information.

User Interface

Advance integration extensions typically enable usability features such as mashups and Web links to embedded custom HTML and third party content within the CRM interface.

This enables users to vie information from other applications using a single user interface and improves productivity by eliminating the need to toggle between applications.

Business Process

Business process and business logic such as data validation rules need to be coordinated to ensure consistency throughout the entire process.

This enables a complete business flow such as lead conversion can reconcile account information from a lead in a CRM application with similar information in an ERP system. This process will eliminate data duplication and automatically convert the lead to an opportunity.