posted on 1/6/2011 9:38:05 AM
Manufacturing ERP vendor Plex integrates its SaaS-based system with Salesforce’s CRM software to serve users of both applications.
This week marked the coming together of two dyed-in-the-wool SaaS application vendors, one from the world of customer relationship management (CRM), the other from the realm of manufacturing ERP.
SaaS ERP provider Plex Systems Inc. announced on Tuesday that it has integrated its Plex Online ERP product with Salesforce.com, a popular vendor of SaaS-based CRM. Plex worked with consulting firm The Revolution Group to evaluate and execute the integration work. The result is an application tie-up focused on the lead management process.
“The initial use case was developed to support a customer that is using Salesforce [CRM] to track marketing leads and Plex Online to track sales leads,” a Plex spokesman told Managing Automation. “Once the lead has been developed and qualified by [the marketing group] in Salesforce.com, it is handed over to Plex Online for the sales team to work on the sale.”
The Revolution Group developed the integration connector, which runs natively in the Salesforce CRM environment. Plex customers will pay an extra cost, which will vary depending on the products’ configurations and the data to be exchanged.
The integration is a compromise of sorts for Plex, which, like, most ERP providers, offers CRM functionality of its own. The Plex Online ERP product includes tools for contact management, opportunity and quote tracking, order tracking, price configuration, and other processes typical to a CRM system.
“Plex Online provides a complete suite of CRM tools for managing the total sales process,” noted Patrick Fetterman, Plex Systems vice president, in a statement. “Yet, for customers that must keep their Salesforce.com deployment, Plex Online will now be able to integrate with it….[T]he integration with Salesforce.com is an opportunity to provide manufacturers with even more functionality.”