A CRM is built to answer one question: where is this deal? For a contract manufacturer, that’s only the beginning. A single customer inquiry can become several products, each with its own formulation, sample rounds, pricing requests, and timeline stretching across months or years. When the CRM stops at “closed” and the real work lives in spreadsheets and a separate PLM system, people become the integration layer, and every handoff is a place for information to get lost.
This is how OrangeDot connected a personal care manufacturer’s sales pipeline to its product development work in monday.com, and tied both to the PLM system it already relied on, without forcing the company to replace the specialized software that worked.
What We’ll Cover
- About the client and its product development process
- Challenge 1: Sales and product development lived in separate systems
- Challenge 2: One inquiry could mean many products, and the new CRM had to talk to the PLM
- How OrangeDot connected CRM, project execution, and the PLM
- The impact: a connected foundation for complex projects
About the Client
This client is a U.S.-based contract manufacturer specializing in personal care and beauty products. Bringing a new product to market meant close coordination across multiple departments, from initial customer inquiries through formulation, sampling, packaging, and production.
Each customer opportunity could involve different product categories, multiple rounds of samples, pricing requests, and development timelines stretching across months or even years. HubSpot managed customer relationships and sales activity, but product development timelines lived in spreadsheets, and manufacturing-related requests were tracked in a separate product lifecycle management (PLM) system. As the team evaluated its long-term technology needs, it became clear that a traditional CRM alone wasn’t enough to support the complexity of its operations.
Two Problems Compounding Each Other
The company needed its sales pipeline to connect with the product development work happening behind the scenes, without replacing the specialized manufacturing software it already trusted.
With information spread across HubSpot, Excel spreadsheets, and its existing PLM software, teams often had to manually transfer information between systems to keep projects moving.
Once an opportunity reached product development, the process became even more complex. Sales, research and development, costing, packaging, and procurement teams needed to coordinate requests for quotation (RFQs), sample development, customer feedback, and changing specifications. Some projects required repeated rounds of sampling and negotiation before receiving approval to move forward.
The company also relied on extensive project briefs to collect critical information before work could begin. Much of that information was captured in large Excel documents, creating additional manual work and making it harder to maintain consistent records across departments.
A CRM that stops at the sale isn’t a workflow. When the work of winning a customer and the work of developing their product live in different places, people become the integration layer, re-keying information, chasing updates, and hoping the spreadsheet matches the system.
A single incoming lead could involve multiple product types, each requiring different formulations, samples, pricing, and timelines. Although these requests might begin as one conversation, they needed to be tracked independently as opportunities progressed. One product could advance toward production while another remained in development or was no longer a fit.
Beyond organizing these processes, the manufacturer needed its new CRM to communicate with its existing PLM system. Customer records, development projects, and sample requests had to stay connected without duplicate records or repeated data entry. With multiple departments relying on the system, the solution also needed appropriate access, clear ownership, and visibility into individual projects and the broader development pipeline.
One customer is not one deal. When every product moves at its own speed, a single opportunity record hides the truth, and a CRM that can’t talk to the PLM forces the team to maintain the same information in two places.
The Solution
OrangeDot partnered with the manufacturer to design a customized monday.com environment that connected sales activity with product development and project execution. Rather than simply recreating the existing HubSpot setup, OrangeDot ran detailed discovery sessions with stakeholders across sales, client services, costing, and engineering to understand how information moved between departments and where workflows could improve. The result combined monday CRM, monday Work Management, custom automations, and a tailored integration with the manufacturer’s PLM platform.
Connected company, contact, business development, and sales records
OrangeDot structured monday CRM around connected records, with custom workflows that guide leads through discovery, initial cost alignment, and qualification before advancing into the sales pipeline.
Multi-product inquiries split into individual opportunities
Rather than forcing the sales team to manage several products within one opportunity, automation separates multi-product inquiries into individual opportunities. Each product progresses independently while staying connected to the original customer relationship.
Validation at critical handoffs
Validation rules and automated safeguards check required project details and company information before an opportunity can advance, so the receiving team has what it needs to begin its work.
Product-specific templates and portfolios
OrangeDot extended the solution into monday Work Management with project templates and portfolios reflecting the manufacturer’s different development processes. When an opportunity is ready for product development, a team member initiates a project board from the appropriate template, organized within its portfolio and tied back to the sales opportunity.
Task sequences, dependencies, and Gantt views
Templates include task sequences, dependencies, timelines, and Gantt views so teams can see what needs to happen next and how each activity affects the overall schedule. They also account for differences between development paths, including expedited timelines and additional testing or regulatory considerations.
Spreadsheets replaced with structured boards
Instead of tracking project schedules in separate spreadsheets, teams use boards and portfolio views to manage development activity and monitor progress across multiple projects.
monday.com as the workspace, the PLM as the specialist
OrangeDot built custom integration workflows that exchange essential information between the two platforms, letting monday.com serve as the primary workspace for sales and project coordination while preserving the specialized manufacturing processes managed in the PLM system. The integration covers creating and updating customer records, establishing new development projects, and submitting RFQs and sample requests.
Unique identifiers, field mapping, and send/update controls
To keep relationships accurate between systems, OrangeDot incorporated unique record identifiers, mapped relevant fields, and designed controls around when information should be sent or updated. That mattered in an environment where a single customer project can generate multiple sample requests and pricing iterations over time.
Tested with the team, then refined
The integration went through multiple rounds of testing with the manufacturer’s team, validating customer record creation, development projects, and different types of sample requests. Along the way OrangeDot troubleshot automation triggers, corrected field mappings, improved project creation reliability, and adjusted validation requirements, and provided guidance on permissions and administration for sales, purchasing, and project management teams.
The Impact
OrangeDot’s work established a more connected foundation for managing the manufacturer’s sales and product development operations.
Sales and Development in One Environment
By bringing CRM and project management into a shared monday.com environment, the company gained a more structured way to connect incoming opportunities with the internal development work required to bring products to market.
Fewer Manual Handoffs, More Consistent Information
Automated handoffs and validation rules were designed to reduce repetitive data entry, improve the consistency of information moving between teams, and prevent opportunities from advancing without essential project details.
A Repeatable Structure for Different Development Paths
Product-specific project templates created a repeatable structure for managing different development paths, while connected portfolios and timelines offered clearer visibility into responsibilities, dependencies, and progress.
Working Alongside Existing Software
The custom PLM integration showed how monday.com can work alongside existing manufacturing software rather than requiring the company to replace every specialized system it relied on.
monday CRM and Work Management in one environment · multi-product inquiries split into independent opportunities · product-specific project templates and portfolios · a custom integration with the existing PLM system
FAQs
Can monday.com replace both a CRM like HubSpot and the project tools that follow a sale?
Yes. monday CRM manages relationships and the sales pipeline, while monday Work Management picks up from there with templated project boards, task dependencies, Gantt views, and portfolios, all linked back to the original opportunity. Instead of a sale ending in one system and development starting in a spreadsheet, the same environment carries the work from first inquiry through execution.
How do you handle a lead that involves several products at different stages?
Automation can split a multi-product inquiry into individual opportunities, so each product advances at its own pace while staying connected to the same customer relationship. One product can move toward production while another stays in development or is dropped, without distorting the pipeline or losing the original context.
Do we have to replace our PLM or other specialized manufacturing software?
No. A custom integration can exchange customer records, development projects, RFQs, and sample requests between monday.com and the existing system. monday.com becomes the primary workspace for sales and project coordination, while the PLM keeps managing the specialized manufacturing processes it was built for.
How do you keep records from duplicating or drifting out of sync between two systems?
Use unique record identifiers so each item can be matched across platforms, map fields deliberately, and put controls around when information is sent or updated. Then test with the team using realistic scenarios, such as creating customers, projects, and different sample request types, before launch.
How do you stop opportunities from moving forward with missing information?
Add validation rules at the handoff points. Before an opportunity can advance, required project details and company information are checked, so the next team, whether R&D, costing, or packaging, receives what it needs to start work instead of chasing it.
Final Thoughts
This engagement went well beyond CRM functionality. It created a framework for connecting the teams responsible for winning new business with those responsible for developing, testing, and delivering the final product, giving the manufacturer a more scalable foundation for coordinating complex projects across departments.
If your sales and delivery work is split across a CRM, spreadsheets, and specialized software, we can help you connect it. Talk to an OrangeDot expert →