{"id":561,"date":"2021-02-09T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T19:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=561"},"modified":"2025-03-20T10:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T02:40:25","slug":"crm-connect-business-silos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/ap\/blog\/crm-connect-business-silos\/","title":{"rendered":"New Research: Is CRM the Secret To Connecting Your Business Silos?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Salesforce partnered with Forrester Consulting to evaluate the use of CRM systems across a wide range of industries. The findings show the core challenges facing business leaders today and how they\u2019re investing in customer-centricity for tomorrow<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s fiscal year planning time, and as the departmental leader, you\u2019re eager to invest in new technology to improve customer experience metrics and performance for your team. There\u2019s immense pressure to deliver quickly, so involving other departments isn\u2019t an option right now, but you\u2019ll be sure to include them in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sound familiar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New research<\/a> shows four out of five organisations are investing in CRM<\/a> to support customer-focused strategies. Yet departmental buyers have traditionally purchased CRM in isolation to solve a single business problem, resulting in a majority reporting that CRM systems are at least somewhat fragmented across their organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These findings highlight a central problem: applying technology to old ways of doing things doesn\u2019t magically change the way teams deliver customer experience at scale. When departmental leaders buy and implement CRM in silos, the real shift to customer-centricity remains out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is a way forward. Let\u2019s look at the data to see whether CRM really is the secret to connecting your business silos. We\u2019ll unpack the core challenges facing business leaders today, how they\u2019re investing in customer-centricity for tomorrow, and how that shift can pay off in a major way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bridging the gap between current usage and expectations for CRM<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Fall 2019, Salesforce commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the use of CRM systems across a wide range of industries. Forrester surveyed 484 business leaders with decision-making responsibility for CRM strategy at their organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business leaders recognise the importance of gaining a single source of customer truth and overwhelmingly agreed that CRM should support the complete customer lifecycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The challenge is that there\u2019s an overwhelming discrepancy between expectations for what a CRM system should support and how CRM is actually being used in businesses of all sizes and industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Business leaders want a single source of customer truth and believe their CRM system has significantly greater utility beyond their sales and service departments, but are struggling to unify data across their teams and systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the report shows \u201ccreating a single view of the customer across teams and systems is the greatest customer experience challenge faced by business leaders today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did it become so difficult?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siloed initiatives mean siloed data<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A majority of respondents (57%) reported that their CRM is at least somewhat fragmented across the organisation, with a few, many, or all departments having their own CRM. This is a result of departments pursuing initiatives in silos \u2014 such as modernising sales, customer service, or existing applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incremental improvement is possible when departmental buyers purchase CRM in isolation to solve a single business problem. But it doesn\u2019t transform the business. In fact, siloing these efforts may be contributing to greater difficulties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the data shows, customer data is coming from too many sources to make sense of it easily, and these silos are negatively impacting the quality of customer and prospect experiences<\/b>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So how does an organisation move past these challenges to leverage the full power of CRM and gain a unified view of the customer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The evolution of CRM as a single source of truth<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before we can take meaningful steps toward customer-centricity, it\u2019s important to recognise what\u2019s possible when multiple teams unite around a single customer view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think back to my recent experience of buying a new car:<\/p>\n\n\n\n