There is an opinion that everything multifunctional is weak. Indeed, this statement looks logical: the more interconnected and interdependent nodes, the higher the likelihood that with the failure of one of them, it will lose its merits and the entire device. We all have repeatedly encountered such situations in office equipment, cars, gadgets. However, in the case of software, the situation is reversed: the more tasks corporate software covers, the faster and more convenient the work, the more familiar the interface, the simpler the business processes. Unification and end-to-end automation in the company solve problem after problem. But can a CRM system be such a “multi-tool”, which has long had the image of a program for sales and customer base management? Of course it can. Moreover, in an ideal world, it should. Let's look into the anatomy of a software organism, shall we?
business to business strife
As long as a small or medium-sized business company is engaged in the creation and sale of services, software, services, advertising and other objects of the intangible or conditionally intangible world, everything is fine: you can be capricious, choose according to the color of the interface and the form of existence of the sales funnel, to bother with the color of the frames and the font of the function buttons and it is relatively easy to live. But everything changes when production and a warehouse appear in the company.
The fact is that production, as a rule, is focused on managing and optimizing the production process. In such companies, especially small ones, absolute priority is given to working with production, and sales and marketing are no longer enough strength, hands, ideas, money, and sometimes just inspiration. But, as you know, in the system of capitalism it is not enough to produce, you need to sell, and since competitors are on the alert, you need to get around them at the turn - of course, with the help of promotion and marketing. This means that the main task is to implement CRM, which will combine all the components: production, warehouse, procurement, sales and marketing. But what should it look like and, most importantly, how much should it cost?
Manufacturing companies, unlike trading companies, have a completely different attitude towards software: from the gadgets and frills of the interface, the focus is shifting sharply towards functionality, connectivity and versatility. Any automation should work like clockwork and support complex business processes, and not just “guide customers”. So if the choice fell on a CRM system, this “CRM for production” should cope not only with taking into account the customer base and the sales funnel, but also include complex production management mechanisms integrated with inventory control and operational functions familiar to any company.
Are there such CRMs for production? Eat. What do they look like, how much do they cost, what language are they in? Let's consider a little lower, but for now let's dwell on whether it is worth contacting "CRM for production" at all, or is it better to work in disparate sources.
CRM for production - why?
We are a CRM system vendor who has repeatedly encountered implementations in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies, and we know that implementing CRM in such a company is not an easy story that requires time, money and the desire to work with business processes from the inside. However, there is a whole list of reasons to start implementation and reach the end in it.
- The first and main reason for the implementation of CRM in any company is the accumulation, systematization and preservation of the customer base. For a manufacturing company, a well-organized customer base is a direct path to future profits: in the case of developing new products, components or related services, you can always resell products to existing customers.
- CRM helps organize sales. And sales are the solution to many problems in the company. Good sales figures are profit, cash flow, and, accordingly, the boss's good mood and high team spirit. Well, of course, I'm exaggerating here, but this postulate is not far from the truth. When your sales add up, you breathe easier, you have the funds to develop, modernize, attract the best market specialists - that is, you have everything to get even more profit.
- When you produce something and you have a CRM system, you actually collect all the data on orders and sales, which means that you can accurately predict demand and quickly adapt to new market demands, change prices or volumes, take a product or service out of the market in time. assortment. Also, sales planning and forecasting helps to form stocks and create a production plan - when, how much and what kind of product you need to produce. And the right production plan is the key to the financial health of the company: you will be able to plan costs, purchases, equipment upgrades, and even hiring staff.
- Again, based on the collected information, complaints can be analyzed and defects can be eliminated. In addition, a CRM system is a great help and a guarantee of qualified work for the service department and technical support: you can view customer profiles, record their requests directly on the card, and also create and store a knowledge base for quick work with requests.
- A CRM system is always a measurement and evaluation of the result: what was produced, how it was sold, why it was not sold, who was the weakest link in the process, and so on. We at RegionSoft CRM have gone further and implemented a powerful KPI system that can be customized as needed for each department of any company. This, of course, is +100 to the measurability and transparency of the work of those employees to whom KPIs can be applied.
- CRM connects the "front-end" of the company (commerce, support, finance, management) with the "back-end" (production, warehouse, logistics). Of course, everything will work separately too, but in the office the words “burning”, “hell of agreement”, “where is the signature of this ****ra”, “*oops with the terms” will often be heard, and polymers will certainly be mentioned (you not forgotten, right?). Joking apart, CRM itself, of course, will not do anything for you, but if you set up business processes and are not too lazy to engage in individual and collective planning, the company will become much easier and calmer to work. To develop or not to develop automation further will be your decision.
When all business processes within a company are based on a single software platform (be it CRM, ERP, or some kind of sophisticated process control system), you get obvious benefits.
- Security - all data is stored in a secure system, user actions are logged, access rights are limited. Thus, if a data leak occurs, it will not go unnoticed and unpunished, and in case of data loss, a backup will save you.
- Consistency - all actions within the company are organized and planned, thanks to business processes and project management, the time for completing work or providing a service is greatly reduced.
- Competent resource management - planning and forecasting allow you to correctly form stocks, not stop production and regulate the workload of personnel.
- Points of savings - thanks to CRM, manufacturers quickly respond to changes in demand, learn to fix seasonality and thereby save significantly, avoiding overproduction and overstocking.
- Full-fledged analytics for management and strategy - today it is simply indecent to make decisions without analyzing information. Collecting, storing and interpreting information will give you a complete understanding of what is happening in your business and you will be able to make informed decisions, and not intuitively or on the principle of "what the card falls."
- Additional sales open the way to getting a high margin from the sale of new products and services due to the fact that you do not need to invest in finding, attracting and retaining customers - this is your old investment, they are all already in your electronic database.
Let's return to the question posed at the beginning of the article - so which CRM system to implement?
Implement a system that works for everyone at once
And now, it seems, there are absolutely no problems with finding production process and sales management systems: first of all, it's SAP, then Microsoft Dynamics, Sugar CRM. There are also domestic manufacturers of ERP. These are complex, cumbersome systems both from the point of view of implementation and from the point of view of operation, but they are able to solve issues of end-to-end automation. Their capabilities are impressive, only the price is more impressive. So, for example, according to average expert estimates, the cost of SAP for small and medium-sized businesses is $ 400 thousand (approx. 25,5 million rubles) and is justified for companies with a turnover of 2,5 billion. Renting an average Microsoft Dynamics tariff will cost about 1,5 million rubles per year for the company 10 people (we did not count the implementation and connectors, without which this CRM would not make sense).
And what about small manufacturing companies all over Russia: manufacturers of industrial equipment, furniture, advertising and production agencies and other manufacturers who have a turnover of less than 3 billion and for whom 1,5 million subscribers, although feasible, but a very tangible waste?
We are we don't just make software, but like any commercial company, we have a mission. Our mission: to provide functional and affordable automation tools for micro, small and medium businesses so that they can start working intensively as soon as possible. We minimize development and promotion costs as much as possible, thereby making our CRM cheaper than competitors in the same class - so, the most sophisticated version will cost for a company with a staff of 10 people 202 thousand rubles (for licenses), and you pay this amount once and for all, without a subscriber. Well, okay, let's add the same amount for revision and implementation (which, by the way, is not always necessary) - anyway, this is three times less than just renting licenses a year from other vendors closest in spirit.
Another question arises - what will the company get for this price? Ordinary CRM-ku with some kind of stable security at the expense of the desktop? NO. Here is what we continuously supply to manufacturing companies:
And at the same time, let's simultaneously simulate how all this functionality can be used. Let us have a small fictional factory for the production of new generation constructors and robots for robotics schools. Models will be made standard and to order.
TsUP is a sales and order management center. It is a logistics engine that processes and monitors processes related to customer orders. Inside the sales control center, you can register customer orders, take into account the accompanying documents for the transaction, ship goods to customers, carry out a logistics analysis with the generation of production orders and orders to suppliers (at the same time, supplier offers are analyzed), transport logistics has been implemented. At the same time, the DCC intelligently suggests the most popular positions when processing the buyer's order.
You can make a technical and commercial proposal (TCH) - we will make it in special forms inside the necessary components for our "exclusive" robots in accordance with their configuration and automatically calculate the cost of the product. Thus, our robot will be formed in the document from components and parts, and the customer will receive by e-mail a full calculation of the cost of the product, along with the costs of development and assembly. At the same time, the production has already analyzed the availability of ready-made robots, designers and necessary components - and, if something is missing, orders for the purchase of missing components have been sent to suppliers.
TCP calculation interface
Item described above is the mechanism of TCH (technical and commercial proposals). TCH is a tool for preparing commercial offers for the supply of complex technical equipment. In fact, this is a constructor in which you can choose a complete set of equipment, including optional equipment, with a calculation of its cost. If the manager uses the TCH, he can set up the compatibility of units and parts with the object of assembly, determine the basic equipment, the number of required components, their technical characteristics, and even a set of advertising information. Thus, he can quickly prepare an offer for the supply of equipment with details on components, taking into account all discounts and markups, payment schedule and promotional materials, if required. At the same time, the cost of the object and components is calculated dynamically at the time of change / formation of the configuration - there is no need to collect information from directories, tables, etc.
After that, you can create a neat and detailed printed form of the TCH, issue an invoice, act, waybill and invoice based on it.
TCH printed form
Software calculators is an important tool for manufacturing companies. Conventionally, imagine that you produce doors: interior doors for Khrushchev, Stalinka and new building, custom-made for high openings of summer cottages and cottages. That is, different-sized specimens from different materials. For each client, you need to calculate his order and, ideally, immediately upload this profile to all documents. IN this can be done using software calculators in which you can calculate the order by parameters in less than 1 minute. Program scripts are open, so any user with programming skills can provide any, even the most complex and individual calculation method.
Directly from RegionSoft CRM you can create requisitions for suppliers in several ways: through sales analysis (based on registered sales in warehouse accounting), through analysis of invoices for payment, through a product matrix, through ABC analysis (auto-order based on customizable criteria - the system itself analyzes sales of goods for a period based on the Pareto principle and generates orders for product groups). After the formation of the application, they enter the application log, uploaded to a file or sent directly to the supplier's e-mail.
Incidentally, about product matrices. This is also an important tool, which is a register of purchase prices indicating suppliers, the validity period of these prices, as well as additional characteristics.
RegionSoft CRM, starting from the Professional Plus edition, has a built-in inventory control according to two models: batch accounting and average accounting. Which type of accounting to choose depends on the needs and responsibilities of your company, we will briefly explain for those who have not yet dived into the topic. Batch accounting is built on the basis of registers of batches, accumulations and totals in the context of warehouses. The most common FIFO batch accounting principle is used. In the case of lot accounting, you can write off only goods whose lots remain, that is, writing off goods as a minus is impossible. This technique is suitable for wholesale sales, especially if you have to reserve an item for shipment to a customer. Accounting by average is more suitable for retail sales: it does not account for batches and it is possible to write off goods as a minus (which, according to accounting, is not in stock, for example, as a result of re-sorting). Naturally, RegionSoft CRM allows you to perform almost all warehouse operations and automatically generates and creates printed forms of all primary documentation (from waybills to technological maps and sales receipts).
Production functionality is based on warehouse accounting, is built into the RegionSoft CRM Enterprise Plus edition and includes a number of mechanisms aimed at automating the release of products and managing production resources. We immediately warn you - do not confuse the functionality of production in a CRM system with an automated control system, although there are common ground. Nevertheless, ASUPP is software where production is primary, and CRM is a program where commerce is primary and end-to-end automation of the work of small and medium-sized businesses is important.
supports both simple production in one stage (purchased components, assembled a PC, sold the PC to a corporate client), and multi-processing production, where production is produced in several stages (for example, first, enlarged units are assembled from components, and then from units and components PC itself). In RegionSoft CRM, it is possible not just to “assemble a system N from subsystems n, m, p”, but also supports the operations of disassembly, transformation, document creation, costing, creating a technological map, etc.
And what a pity that we don’t actually produce robots, and schools buy them from Lego or from Chinese manufacturers 🙂
If you are using , you do not just get a few additional modules - many interface segments are tailored to the needs of such a client. For example, when filling out a product item card, among other things, the user can fill out the "Production" section - the product warehouse, production specification and flow chart, production technology by stages and a description of production in a free format are prescribed. Also, the sections related to the TCH are filled in the card, which will then help to form the TCH in a few clicks.
By the way, all these mechanisms can be applied to any type of production: from food production to helicopter assembly. There would be a desire and understanding of how deeply and competently you are ready to automate production processes.
And, of course, the connecting link of all these components are business processes. All routine and typical tasks, all processes should be automated - that is, ideally, your CRM should have a business process modeling system, when creating which tasks, responsible persons, deadlines, triggers, etc. are prescribed. And this entire set should work smoothly and actually organize all employees to solve the next macro-task (for example, the production of a batch of robots and the coordination of a complex technical and commercial plan).
Lyric-technical afterword
At one event, our colleague was asked: “How are you (RegionSoft CRM is not a colleague, - approx. ed.) look inside: closer to Basecamp or closer to 1C?” In fact, this question was often asked more professionally, but never so naively and at the same time accurately. It is clear that it was about the complexity of the interface. And there is no answer to this question; here, rather, a whole philosophical treatise can be written. The ubiquity of the web and the relative availability of programming have led to the flooding of the market with simple solutions for doing business and managing tasks in a company: honestly, put me on the shelves, what are the fundamental differences between Asana, Wrike, Basecamp, Worksection, Trello and so on. (with the exception of the Atlassian stack)? The difference is in design, gadgets and degree of simplification. It is on the basis of this trio of chips that modern software for small businesses began to compete. Then the developers of a part of such software realized that the business was looking for CRM in search, and so numerous “lightweight” CRMs appeared, which developed into their own branch, became programs for sales and for accounting for customers.
And only a couple of units of them went further, left / returned, including to the desktop, and began to add the functionality of a warehouse, production, document management, etc. Implementing such automation in a simple interface with stickers, cards, and emoticons is almost impossible. In general, if you develop corporate software or choose a good system for your company, I advise you to ... go to check your eyesight in some cool specialized center. It costs 1,5-2 thousand, but in addition to the main function, it will be interesting for you as a developer: equipment with a stunning physical interface (beautiful, minimalistic, convenient) is combined with a very complex operator interface on a PC. And you will not find flat design, gradient, minimalism and so on there. - only harsh interface buttons, tables, a bunch of elements and all sorts of integrations between applications. And everything, of course, desktop. By the way, all these programs are integrated with a CRM system (that is, a repository of customer cards and financial information). The same story with dentists - but this is a less pleasant excursion, do not get sick.
for many companies, the only way to improve processes, to make work intensive, to release a certain amount of the most valuable asset - human labor. Yes, the implementation of CRM in a manufacturing company is always a little more complicated and lengthy than, for example, in a trading company, but this is a very justified waste. You have experienced staff with a salary, expensive equipment, reliable suppliers, your own know-how and developments - the business flywheel is spinning. End-to-end automation with the help of CRM will make the flywheel move faster. This means that the business will become more productive.
Source: habr.com