The news: Disconnected systems and manual customer relationship management (CRM) workflows are costing teams time and money.

• 73% of US sales and marketing professionals use at least two tools or systems to get a complete picture of a customer account, per Pipedrive’s “CRM Trends Report.”
• 63% say disconnected tools cause teams to “miss important actions, opportunities, or updates” at least weekly, including 43% who say it happens at least daily.

This dynamic is even more pronounced at small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs): Of all the professionals who use at least two systems, 62% work at a company with fewer than 500 employees.

A significant portion of employees’ workdays is spent on non-revenue-generating work as well, with 42% of professionals using at least 40% of their day for such work. Once again, this trend is louder at SMBs, where 40% of workers spend over 60% of their day on admin work.

What it means: CRM fragmentation is a productivity issue, not just a tech-stack challenge. If sales and marketing teams have to stitch customer information and context together across multiple systems, costs show up in missed opportunities and less time for revenue-generating work.

SMBs, which have fewer resources to absorb those inefficiencies, are especially exposed, and incorporating additional tools could compound the problem. Teams need to scrutinize whether existing workflows are making data easy to act on or are just creating more places to enter and reconcile information.

AI adds urgency to that evaluation: Automation of admin tasks gives marketers time for strategy and creative, but gains could be limited if AI is working with incomplete information across fragmented data and workflows.

Recommendations for marketers: Audit tech stacks around workflows rather than individual tools to evaluate whether combining platforms makes it easier or harder to turn customer data into actionable insights.

• Before incorporating AI tools, prioritize integrating customer data and systems by looking for one-size-fits-all martech vendors and assessing organizational flows.
• At SMBs in particular, focus on technology applications that can reduce work required to understand and act on customer needs. That can include AI tools that simultaneously gather data and produce insights.