Improving CRM Efficiency with Zoho – NetSuite Integration

Client Portfolio

Our client is a pioneer in digital service and solution innovations in the IT support services industry. Headquartered in Singapore, they have established an impressive presence across multiple continents with operations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Dubai, and India.  

They approached Jobin & Jismi to integrate their Zoho CRM system, a product of Zoho Corporation Pvt. Ltd., with NetSuite to handle customer relationship management and financial operations in a fully unified workflow.  

Zoho CRM is a comprehensive, SaaS-based customer relationship management system that allows businesses to streamline their sales, marketing, contacts, and customer support processes. The platform boasts features robust enough to include lead and contact management, sales pipeline tracking, workflow automation, and detailed analytics. As one of the flagship products of Zoho Corporation, Zoho CRM provides a 360-degree view of your sales pipeline and enables your team to convert leads faster, engage more customers, and close deals faster.  

Problem Statement

Zoho CRM functioned as the client’s central tool in customer relationship management and overseeing sales deal workflows. Oracle NetSuite ERP was implemented for the rest of business operations such as managing finances, orders, and reporting. Manually creating the deals in Zoho as opportunities in NetSuite was tiresome and error-prone, which affected the efficiency of their business operations. Therefore, they approached us to integrate the ERP and CRM platforms to ensure that data from Zoho CRM would be synced with NetSuite in real-time.  

They needed a solution that would: 

• Migrate all the historical data on leads, customers, and opportunities from Zoho CRM to NetSuite before the integration.  

• Automate the data transfer of the deals created through a specific custom form in Zoho CRM into NetSuite.  

• Ensure that the customer and deal are updated in NetSuite without any manual intervention.  

• Implement an approval process in such a way that an authorized individual must approve the deals before the corresponding opportunity records are created in NetSuite.  

• While creating the opportunity in NetSuite, all the relevant fields from Zoho need to be included.  

• Whenever a deal or customer records are updated or deleted in Zoho, those need to be reflected accordingly in NetSuite.  

• Upon encountering any errors or issues during the syncing process, the stakeholders must be notified of the same, so that the problems are identified and resolved quickly. 

What We Suggested

After a detailed analysis of the client’s requirements, our experts proposed a custom integration solution to seamlessly connect the two platforms. The custom Zoho CRM to NetSuite integration solution is designed to ensure seamless data synchronization, accuracy, and effectiveness. Our approach included:  

• Facilitated the migration of historical data from Zoho CRM to NetSuite, using the cloud platform’s import techniques to transfer existing leads, customers, and opportunities.  

• Executed all the necessary measures, including field customization as required in order to accurately map fields and data between Zoho CRM and NetSuite.  

• Developed a system that leveraged the API endpoints provided by Zoho for effective communication between the two systems and ensuring the real-time synchronization of data from Zoho to NetSuite.  

• Designed and implemented a structured workflow where deals created in Zoho CRM were mapped to the corresponding fields of a custom opportunity record in NetSuite.  

• Introduced an approval system to make sure only the needed and error-free records progressed to the next stage. This allowed an authorized person to validate the custom CRM opportunity before they were officially created as an opportunity in NetSuite.  

• Configured automated processes to handle updates and deletions, ensuring that any changes made in the customer record in Zoho CRM were accurately reflected in NetSuite customer record in real-time.  

• In the case of updates or deletion of deals in Zoho CRM, the integration ensured that these actions were accurately reflected in NetSuite. Updating was handled in two ways:  

1) Before Approval: If changes were made to the deal data in Zoho CRM before the custom CRM opportunity record was approved in NetSuite, the updates would reflect in the latter.  

2) After Approval: If updates were made to the Zoho CRM record after the custom CRM opportunity record was approved, thus creating the opportunity, the changes would be reflected directly in the corresponding opportunity record in NetSuite.  

• By scheduling the integration to run every 30 minutes, we ensured consistent synchronization  

• Email notifications were set up to alert stakeholders about any errors during the process, enabling timely resolution.  

• Automated status updates and change tracking. Adjusted the status probability as needed and added two new statuses “SOW on Desk” and “Prospecting,” apart from the standard ones in NetSuite. 

• For CRM Opportunity Record creation, the subsidiary is set to Dubai during integration. Provided the option for the user to change it in the CRM opportunity record before the approval.  

Challenges

The integration process brought with it its own set of challenges. However, we have an expert team here, who can solve the complexities with innovative solutions:  

• Establishing Connectivity with Zoho CRM 

Establishing a secure connection between Zoho CRM and NetSuite was important to ensuring real-time data synchronization. Configuring the API endpoints and ensuring compatibility with the JSON format of Zoho was not easy, which was met with meticulous planning and testing.  

• Migrating Historical Data 

Prior to the integration process, the client demanded the transfer of all leads, customers, and opportunities in Zoho CRM to NetSuite. This migration process was a challenge, especially in the case of mapping custom fields so that no data integrity issues arose.  

• Data Mapping  

The mapping of the fields in Zoho CRM needed to be done accurately to their corresponding fields in NetSuite, including standard and custom fields.  

• Validation 

Prior to any deals in Zoho being automatically created as opportunities within NetSuite, there had to be verification checks to determine whether that particular customer already existed in NetSuite. If no customer record was found to exist, the system would dynamically generate the required record.  

• Customizing the Approval Workflow 

A custom workflow was needed to be built to generate a CRM opportunity record in NetSuite that could be reviewed and approved by an authorized person before it would become an opportunity record. It was indeed quite complex but essentially needed.  

• Handling Updates 

Specific scenarios, such as updates before and after approval in NetSuite, made the synchronization logic all the more complex.  

• Maintaining Default Values for Mandatory Fields 

Subsidiary was one mandatory field in NetSuite that had not been maintained in Zoho CRM. During the integration, a default value had to be assigned (Dubai). It was important to ensure that this default assignment did not come into conflict with the client’s business processes.  

All these issues have been proactively resolved to deliver a robust and reliable integration to address the specific requirements of the client.  

Customer Success

The seamless integration of Zoho CRM with NetSuite enabled the client to enhance their sales processes. This integration conferred several essential advantages:    

• Automated Synchronization:  The deal, as well as customer data from Zoho CRM, is now synchronized in real time with NetSuite, thus saving users from entering data manually and minimizing the risk of errors.  

• Improved Operational Efficiency: Changes and deletions in Zoho CRM are exactly reflected in NetSuite, thus ensuring data integrity and reducing administrative burdens.  

• Approval Process: The custom CRM Opportunity Record with an approval mechanism allows to verify opportunities prior to the creation of the same in NetSuite.  

• Better Decision-Making: since all customer and deal data would be synced with NetSuite, the client can make informed decisions. 

• Seamless import of historical data from Zoho CRM into NetSuite.  
• Real-time data flow from Zoho CRM to NetSuite ERP was achieved without the necessity for manual intervention.  
• It successfully mapped all the standard and custom fields between these two systems for an easy transfer of information.  
• Necessary custom fields and opportunity stages had been included to maintain simplicity and functionality.  
• A strong validation logic to ensure existing records were correctly linked and avoid data duplication. 
• Facilitated intuitive processes, including error notifications, to improve the user experience. 
• The integration framework has been developed to accommodate future business requirements and hence is suitable for any type of industry and geographic area.  

Way Forward

With this integration, the client now has a strong and automated means of handling their CRM and ERP processes. The client in the future can enhance or update the approval workflow system, integrate with further business systems, expand the automated validation rules, incorporate new field mappings as the need arises, and more.  

Do you want to automate and make customer relationship management smooth through a seamless CRM and ERP integration? Our expert team is ready to assist you. Contact us now at Jobin & Jismi and let us help you with your requirements.  

*Zoho CRM is a product developed by Zoho Corporation Pvt. Ltd.