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Integration  with   back‑  office  systems

When introducing a CRM system to an organisation, a company will have previously 

invested in systems for other key business functions such as sales order processing or cus-

tomer support. These existing, legacy systems appear at both the applications and database 

levels in Figure 9.23. It will not be financially viable to discard these applications, but inte-

gration with them is vital to give visibility of the customer information to everyone in the 

organisation and provide excellent customer support. Thus integration of legacy systems is a 

vital part of deciding on and implementing CRM systems.