Carlos EscasainCommercial Systems & Process Architect

Carlos Escasain — Commercial Systems & Process Architect

I design the processes, systems and data behind commercial operations.

I start with how the organization actually operates—stages, decisions, ownership, handoffs and exceptions—then design the CRM, ERP, integration, data and automation that make that operation reliable.

See how I work Read the process case

Typical work: multi-country CRM programs · CRM–ERP customer lifecycles · AI in live sales workflows.

01Process Architecture

Design the operation before designing the system.

I map how work actually flows—stages, owners, handoffs, decisions and exceptions—and design the target process before deciding which technology should run it.

  • Lifecycle design
  • Decision rights
  • Ownership and handoffs
  • Exception paths
Lead to customer, one lens at a time: Lead qualification, Potential customer, Opportunity, Commercial approval, Financial validation, Customer created, First order, Active customer.

Lead to customer, one lens at a time

  1. 01Lead qualification

    Owner: Marketing

    Decision

    Lead belongs to an existing customerRedirected to the account team

    CRM Lead scored & routed

  2. 02Potential customer

    Owner: Sales (handoff)

    Human action

    Probable duplicatePaused for match review

    CRM Account · prospectERP Party index lookup

  3. 03Opportunity

    Owner: Sales

    Human action

    Terms outside policyFlagged into approval

    CRM Opportunity & quote

  4. 04Commercial approval

    Owner: Commercial mgmt (handoff)

    Approval gate

    Rejected→ back to Opportunity

    CRM Approval & audit record

  5. 05Financial validation

    Owner: Finance (handoff)

    Approval gate

    Missing or invalid legal data→ back to Potential customer

    CRM Validation pendingERP Validation rules

  6. 06Customer created

    Owner: ERP (handoff)

    System action

    Timeout — outcome unknownHeld — reconcile, then continue

    CRM Number received Legal identity: CRM → ERP

  7. 07First order

    Owner: Sales (handoff)

    Human action

    Order exceeds credit limitHeld — credit review

    CRM Order status visibleERP Sales order

  8. 08Active customer

    Owner: Commercial mgmt (handoff)

    Lifecycle state

    Order cancelled before invoicing→ back to First order

    CRM Lifecycle · activeERP Invoice event

Explore Process Architecture

02Digital Operating Model

Transformation is broader than the technology it installs.

A commercial platform changes who decides, who owns which data and how performance is governed. I design those layers together, so the organization can run what it builds—and keep changing it.

  • Value streams
  • Decision rights
  • Governance and variation
  • KPI ownership
One change, followed through the operating model. The change “New rule: large discounts need finance approval” touches every layer: Process: A new approval step, with a time limit and a rejection path; Operating model: Finance gains a decision; sales loses one; Systems: An approval rule in the CRM and the quote tool; Data: Approval history becomes reportable evidence; Automation: Routing by threshold; the judgement stays human; Measurement: Approval ageing and discount leakage, each with an owner.
Explore Digital Operating Model

03Change & Adoption

Go-live is where adoption starts, not where it ends.

Systems change nothing until people work differently. I design adoption into the solution—roles, incentives, enablement and the signals that show whether the process is really followed.

  • Operating habits
  • Roles and incentives
  • Enablement on real work
  • Process compliance
Configured at go-live, adopted over time. Across Design, Enable, Adopt, Measure, Improve, the system is fully configured at go-live; “used as designed” rises gradually afterwards, while “left to training alone” levels off well below it.
Explore Change & Adoption

04Systems & CRM Architecture

Give every system one clear job, owner and boundary.

I define system boundaries, responsibilities, sources of truth, identities, contracts and failure behavior—so CRM, ERP and the platforms around them each do one job well.

  • CRM architecture
  • ERP interaction
  • System ownership
  • Integration contracts
How a commercial process becomes a system architecture. CRM (Commercial) owns commercial lifecycle, approval record and the status users see; runs Lead qualification, Potential customer, Opportunity, Commercial approval. Integration layer (Platform) owns delivery state, idempotency keys, retries and correlation. ERP (Finance) owns legal and transactional customer, canonical customer number; runs Financial validation, Customer created, First order. All of them feed the data platform: analytical history and cross-system signals.
Explore Systems & CRM Architecture

05Data & Integrations

Decide what moves, how fast, and who owns it.

I decide which system of record owns each fact, what moves by API, event or batch, and how both sides are reconciled when they disagree—before anyone maps a field.

  • Systems of record
  • API and event flows
  • Sync and reconciliation
  • Data quality
How commercial data moves between systems. CRM owns commercial lifecycle and pipeline; it feeds ERP through a synchronous link (api on request). ERP owns legal customer, orders and invoices; it feeds Data platform through a event-driven link (events as they happen). Data platform owns history and identity resolution; it feeds Analytics through a batch link (nightly batch). Analytics owns one published definition per metric. A daily reconciliation compares both sides of every flow.
Explore Data & Integrations

06Automation

Automate the path, keep the judgement human.

I treat automation as process execution: which steps should run on their own, which need a person, and what happens when either of them fails.

  • Workflow orchestration
  • Approvals and escalation
  • Exception handling
  • Human-in-the-loop
A manual chain becomes an automated one—except the decision. Showing the automated version.

  1. TriggerManualAutomated

    Opportunity marked as won

  2. RuleManualAutomated

    Does this customer need a credit review?

  3. AutomationManualAutomated

    Creation request sent to the ERP

  4. Human decisionManualPerson decides

    Finance validates the credit terms

  5. Next stateManualAutomated

    Customer ready to order

The decision stays with a person. Everything around it moves on its own.

Explore Automation

07AI & Agentic Workflows

AI that acts in real workflows, with people in control.

Not demos: agents that read structured context, take bounded actions in systems of record, pause for human approval where it matters, and leave an audit trail.

  • Structured context
  • Bounded system actions
  • Human approval
  • Audit and guardrails
An agent processes a request and stops at human review: Incoming email — RFQ from a distributor, three lines; Classify & extract — Reads it with permitted context only; Match entities — Customer matched; two of three products; CRM draft — Draft quote prepared—nothing committed; Human review — Approve, or send back with a reason. You are the reviewer.
  1. 01Incoming emailRFQ from a distributor, three lines
  2. 02Classify & extractReads it with permitted context only
  3. 03Match entitiesCustomer matched; two of three products
  4. 04CRM draftDraft quote prepared—nothing committed
  5. 05Human reviewApprove, or send back with a reason

Awaiting human review

Explore AI & Agentic Workflows

08Revenue Operations

One commercial operating system, measured the same way everywhere.

RevOps connects process, CRM, data, targets and measurement into one system the business can steer by—with one definition per metric and a clear line from signal to action.

  • Pipeline and stage criteria
  • Forecast ownership
  • Management cadence
  • Performance governance
Five inputs, one commercial operating system: Process, CRM, Data, Targets, Measurement make up the commercial operating system. One KPI, Pipeline coverage: Definition — Open pipeline ÷ remaining target, by segment; Owner — Sales management; Computed — Data platform—published once, shown in the CRM; Triggered action — Add pipeline generation where coverage falls below plan.
Explore Revenue Operations

Selected work

Process architecture and system architecture are two sides of the same problem.

One fictional customer lifecycle, designed twice—as an operating model and as a system boundary.

Process architecture

Designing a global lead-to-customer operating model

A process-first case for a fictional global B2B company: stages, decision rights, approvals, exceptions and measurement—designed before any system is configured.

Fictional scenario · 20 min
System architecture

Designing a CRM–ERP customer lifecycle

A premise-led architecture for a fictional global B2B company: from commercial intent to legally valid, operationally recoverable customer.

Fictional scenario · 18 min

Also in the library3 reference architectures18 decision records1 synthetic lab

Writing & lab

Ideas for operating better systems.

  1. Perspective / 05An approval step is not a decision modelAdding a step is easy. Defining the decision, its evidence, its owner and what happens after ‘no’ is the actual design work.
  2. Perspective / 01CRM adoption is usually an operating-model problemTraining cannot repair incentives, ownership and process design that make the system irrational to use.
  3. Perspective / 02AI agents cannot fix fragmented commercial dataAgency amplifies the quality—and ambiguity—of the identity and authority model beneath it.
All writing
Lab / 001 · Synthetic lab

AI RFQ processing lab

A synthetic, inspectable experiment in turning unstructured requests into governed record drafts—with people at the consequential boundary.

Start with the problem

Working through a process or systems decision that crosses several teams?

  • What decision is blocked?
  • Which boundaries does it cross?
  • What has already been assumed?
Start a conversation