What Is The Major Difference Between Erp And Crm?

By Author: Jhon Napier
Total Articles: 437
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CRM and ERP are two different technologies and focus on different aspects. Many organizations are using both these applications together allowing CRM data to have a positive influence on the decisions administered by the Enterprise Resource Planning. There is a difference between ERP and CRM. CRM or Customer Relationship Management application oversees the customer interactions, customer service, sales activities and marketing products. This application is restricted to the activities related to sales. ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning oversees the production management, account management and the supply chain management. It ensures a smooth flow of information between the administration, accounts, human resource and the production. Both these applications can be used together by integrating the internal business with ERP and tracking the individual sales performance, customer services, marketing activities, etc with CRM.

The difference between ERP and CRM are many as so are their benefits. The benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning include decrease in lead time of the products, availability of the information which ...
... is relevant for accurate decision making, improvement of ROI and an automated business environment with better communication. Besides this the advantage of ERP is improved decision making and actions by management, a smooth flow of the information between the different departments and increase in productivity. The benefits of CRM are tracking of sales person, increase in sales productivity, aid in cross selling of products with multiple products, decrease in costs, improvement in customer service and increase in profits.

Customer Relationship Management is used in areas of marketing and sales whereas Enterprise Resource Planning is used in all the areas of the organization. The difference between ERP and CRM is that both their roles are different. Both the applications can be integrated in a proper manner to help the whole business process of the organization.

CRM focuses on the interaction an organization maintains with the customers and keeps a track of the customer's base. This application focuses on the customer while ERP application has a broader view. It is not just for customers and sales but for the entire business process. ERP provides automation the financial functions, marketing, sales, distribution and project management functions. The software vendors integrate Customer Relationship Management within the Enterprise Resource Planning. The difference between ERP and CRM are to suit different purposes. Both the applications provide for sharing and coordinating information.

Customers and sales are managed by the Customer Relationship Management whereas the productivity and employees are managed by Enterprise Resource Planning. A CRM aids in forecasting the revenue by tracking the progress and provide automation of the sales and marketing functions. ERP aids in standardizing the business process thereby structuring the information and making it useful. This is the difference between ERP and CRM and both are used by the organizations together due to their different roles. ERP is thought to be for streamlining the internal process of the organization or company, but nowadays the system are crossing over to areas covered by CRM. CRM basically has a more narrower view than that of an ERP system.

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