Data synchronisation and cost reduction using API in customer relationship management

Research has shown that 51% of all ERP implementations involve some kind of problems in business operations during the 'go live' phase. Despite all the efforts to increase efficiency and improve business processes, many organizations come to a conclusion that once they move to the new ERP system they are not able to perform some of the basic business processes (both in the data migration phase and operational procedures), such as issuing goods from the warehouse. The ERP implementations are too often accompanied by technical and organizational issues that may cause problems in the functioning of a business system. As organizational issues are more frequently the cause of the problem, it is crucial to accurately perform the business processes analysis phase, as well as the final testing. Based on the analysis of the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) e-business models of the largest producers of software applications, the bottlenecks and shortcomings typical of the implementation of these models were identified in a select sample of clients and it has been established that there are certain inconsistencies and programme problems between the company information system (IS) and the implemented ERP/CRM or SCM models. The identified problems served as the basis for designing and programming an application programming interface (API) aimed at addressing certain application needs of the companies, i.e. the inadequate synchronization of databases and other IT resources. The API has been designed and programmed with a view to resolving the problems with inconsistencies and synchronization and reducing business operations costs. It has been tested as a pilot application on ISs of selected companies that apply the ERP/CRM business support systems. This work describes the ERP/CRM database synchronization process and tests the quality of the API solution based on a programmed web survey, i.e. on the statistical processing of the obtained results of the survey which documents the quality of the proposed solutions and confirms the successful implementation of the API solution.