What are the best CRM implementation options for companies replacing multiple disconnected tools?
Consolidate onto one platform first, then integrate only what genuinely has to stay.
Before you pick an implementation approach, sort every tool you own into three piles: replace, integrate, or retire. Most consolidation projects go wrong because somebody decided in advance either that everything gets replaced or that everything gets integrated. Both answers are wrong.
Run the triage first
List every system that touches a customer. For each one, write down who uses it daily, what data only exists there, and what would actually break if it disappeared on Friday. That last question kills more tools than any strategy deck. Plenty of subscriptions survive on nobody wanting to be the person who cancelled them.
- Replace if the CRM does the same job adequately and the only cost is retraining.
- Integrate if the system is the true source of something the CRM cannot own.
- Retire if one person uses it for a report they could get elsewhere.
What usually gets replaced
Standalone email marketing tools, form builders, meeting schedulers, simple ticketing tools, separate landing page builders, and the pile of spreadsheets that track pipeline. These exist because there was no CRM. Once there is one, keeping them means keeping a sync, and every sync is a thing that breaks quietly.
What should stay
Your ERP stays. So does accounting, billing, inventory, payroll, and usually your e-commerce platform. These are systems of record for money and product, they are audited, and replacing one during a CRM project is how a six month project becomes an eighteen month project. Connect them instead, and be specific about direction: the ERP owns the invoice, the CRM owns the relationship, and one of them wins on every shared field.
Industry specific systems also tend to stay. A practice management system, a dealer management system, a claims platform. The CRM sits in front of them.
Do not build all the integrations at once
Integrate what blocks somebody's daily work in phase one. Everything else waits until the data model has stopped moving, because an integration written against a property you rename next month has to be written twice.
See our integration work, our custom development services, and third party apps worth keeping.
Related: Which systems should you integrate during a CRM implementation? | Can you connect HubSpot to our ERP? | What systems can LevelUp Digital integrate? | My data lives in 5 different tools. Can you help unify it?