Manufacturers Aren't Rejecting CRM. They're Rejecting CRM That Ignores ERP.

I was recently on a call with a sales leader who had written off CRM three years ago. He'd been burned before by a system that lived on its own island, disconnected from the Epicor Kinetic environment where his actual business ran. He assumed real integration wasn't possible. Not without six figures and six months of consultants. When I showed him what we had, he called it "lightning out of the blue sky."

February 11, 2026

Christian Wettre

EVP, GM North America

The Real Problem Isn't CRM, it's the Gap

Here's what most CRM vendors won't tell you: in manufacturing, a CRM that doesn't talk to your ERP is barely a CRM at all. It's a contact list with a pipeline attached.

The numbers back this up. Research shows that data silos between front-office and back-office systems cost manufacturers 20-30% in lost revenue annually from operational inefficiencies alone. For a $10 million company, that's $2-3 million slipping through the cracks with missed cross-sells, duplicated effort, and decisions made on incomplete information.

Meanwhile, sales reps spend 30-40% of their time on non-selling activities. A huge chunk of that is hunting for information across disconnected systems, re-keying data, and toggling between screens just to answer a basic customer question. That's not a productivity problem. That's a systems problem.

What "Integration" Actually Looks Like

This is what I showed that sales leader and which changed his mind:

Live Epicor data inside CRM. Quotes, invoices, order status, and full account history all on one screen before every call. No logging into Epicor. No asking operations to pull a report. The rep sees everything the customer sees, and then some.
Fast Quotes that push to Epicor when ready. The quote lives in CRM where the sales conversation happens, then flows directly into ERP when it's time to execute. No re-keying. No transcription errors. No lag.
Everything in Outlook. Because that's where reps actually live. Email, calendar, and CRM context all in one place, not three browser tabs deep.
A real mobile app. Field reps pull up account history, check order status, and log visit notes from the parking lot.

The result? Prepared reps. Executive visibility. Field intelligence that leadership can actually act on. None of that is possible when CRM and ERP are strangers.

Even If You're Not Looking Today

CRM might not be on your radar right now. But knowing that this kind of integration exists changes the conversation for when it is. Too many manufacturers settle for disconnected tools because they assume tight ERP integration is either impossible or prohibitively expensive. It's neither.

What we showed that sales leader is called Fluent Integration by TCP. CRM by SugarCRM. ERP by Epicor Kinetic. Purpose-built for manufacturers who need their sales tools to reflect their operational reality.

Because when the time comes, you'll know exactly what to ask for.