Comence Press Release

Commence offers industrial companies complete “Freedom of Choice” to select the solutions and platform that best meets the business requirements of manufacturers and distributors. The comprehensive Lean CRM Industrial application suite is available for use on premise or on-demand as a hosted service. Industrial leaders often build departmental Lean CRM solutions with the award winning Commence Lean Industrial CRM Framework. These choices are why so many industrial companies choose Commence as the solution for managing customer relationships. All Commence Industrial solutions support mobile or wireless connectivity and integration to back-office accounting and ERP systems.

Thomas R. Cutler recently wrote a feature article about lean industrial CRM for AutomationMedia.com. Cutler noted, “With up to ten years of continued process improvements on the plant floor, back office, and distribution operations, manufacturers have finally arrived at the front door of customer relationship management (CRM). Still engineering and operations focused, many senior manufacturing executives are strongly resistant and visibly uncomfortable in approaching lean CRM. Applying a kaizen blitz approach to sales and marketing quickly results in the obvious for most manufacturing firms: an area of neglect.”

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors are capitalizing their long-established client relationship with manufacturers and distributor by attempting to extend their reach. Some ERP vendors offer industry specific CRM solutions; many do not. Bolt-on generic CRM solutions are frequently sold by ERP vendors assisting only the bottom-line of the software firm.

Larry Caretsky, President of New Jersey-based Commence, (www.commence.com/mfg) developers of a stand alone industrial CRM solution, suggested that most ERP companies offering CRM have short-falls. According to Caretsky, “Managing the sales cycle and sales representative performance, marketing campaign management and integration with customer support are not provided by ERP tools.”

One project-based ERP vendor acknowledged that CRM was neither their strength nor focus. “CRM is not within our strength or even portfolio of modules at the moment. We do not have a complete CRM product offering. Our older ERP product had an add-on module, but it is not a full CRM module by any means. Furthermore, none of our European customers have purchased it. For customers who may require CRM near term, we are recommending third party products or services.”

The full feature article may be read at http://www.automationmedia.com/ARDetail.asp?ID=%2013.