Toledo-based Technology Group International ( www.tgiltd.com) is an ERP vendor that has developed a customized industrial CRM solution. Rebecca Gill, vice-president of TGI noted several key reasons for purchase an integrated ERP/CRM solution. Full integration allows:

? Access to data in manufacturing, distribution, and accounting.
? Instant notification of credit issues.
? Instant capability to promise data for both manufactured and distributed products.
? Direct tie between anticipated sales and related costs.
? Instant access to historical information like sales, returns, on-time payments, margins, and other data.
? Integrated dashboards that go beyond the typical sales funnel; show true margin comparisons.
? No need to re-shuffle sales data, or re-evaluate, or re-key. Data is all available to dice and slice as needed.
? No lag time between data syncing or replicating. Management staff has live, real-time sales data.
? True 360 degree view of the customer for the organization and not just the sales representatives.

Thomas R. Cutler recently wrote a feature article about 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."

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

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Technology Group International is a proven technology leader delivering Tier 1 application software functionality at a price performance level that can be readily accepted by organizations of all sizes. Specializing in software solutions for small and mid-market manufacturing and distribution companies, TGI's integrated Enterprise Series software suite is a complete business process management solution. The product offering includes Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Warehouse Management System (WMS), Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), Decision Support System (DSS), Business Intelligence (BI), Manufacturing Execution System (MES), and eCommerce. TGI implements, maintains, enhances, and supports its packaged distribution and manufacturing software solutions directly and via its channel partners.