Difference Between CRM and ERP
What is CRM?
CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management, a way to manage the interaction of a business with current and potential customers. Help companies use their practices of managing and analyzing customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle to increase profitability. At the same time, the CRM system is both a management system and a set of software and technology. The goal is to reduce sales cycle and cost of sales, improve customer service relationships, and help customers retain and drive sales growth by increasing customer value, satisfaction, profitability, and loyalty.
Second, what is ERP?
The ERP system is short for Enterprise Resource Planning and is a business process management software. It leverages a common database maintained by a database management system to provide an integrated and constantly updated view of core business processes. It also integrates planning, procurement, inventory, sales, marketing, finance and human resources. It extends the capabilities of MRP and its core idea is supply chain management. ERP promotes the flow of information between all business functions and manages relationships with external stakeholders, facilitates the flow of information between all business functions, and has a significant role in enhancing the core competitiveness of the enterprise.
What are the differences and connections between CRM and ERP?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are similar in many ways because they are used to improve the overall profitability of the business. Although they overlap in some areas and can be fully integrated in other areas, there is still a certain difference between the two.
First, the main purpose of CRM is to establish, develop, and maintain customer relationships. ERP emphasizes that the purpose of business is to increase the productivity of the entire profitable business. Secondly, there are differences between the two in terms of attention. The focus of erp is “enterprise internal resource planning”, and CRM pays more attention to “market and customers”. Also, their core functions are completely different and have certain differences.
Common features of a CRM system include:
Customer Relationship Management: Customer Basic Information, Customer Tracking, Contract Management, etc.
Marketing Automation: Marketing Strategy, Email Marketing and Event Management
Sales automation: contact management, channel analysis, sales forecasting, etc.
Customer Service: Quick entry and scheduling, scheduling and reallocation of service items, live chat
Field service management: scheduling, scheduling, billing, etc.
Knowledge Base Management: Display personalized information, document management, etc. on the site
Call center automation: incoming and outgoing call processing, Internet callback, routing, etc.
Channel Management: Liaison and Lead Management, Partnership Management and Market Development Fund Management
Common core functions of the ERP system are:
Accounting: managing financial related transactions
Project management: the whole process from the beginning of the project to the end of the project
Customer Relationship Management: Customer Basic Information, Customer Tracking, Contract Management, etc.
Human resources: personnel management, personnel files, employee training, compensation management, etc.
Inventory: Provides up-to-date information on product availability
Manufacturing: is the core of ERP
Supply Chain: Tracking the process from manufacturing to distribution
The core differences have been mentioned above, but they are not the only ones. There are also the following main differences:
CRM is mainly for customer relationship management with enterprises, while ERP mainly focuses on enterprise resource planning.
CRM allows companies to track the tools of each customer’s transactions, while ERP is a tool that helps companies manage business processes.
ERP can have a longer lifetime than CRM
CRM is a tool to increase sales, while ERP is designed to reduce costs
CRM is based on the project, focusing on the business management before the order is signed. erp is based on the order and starts from the generation of the sales order.
CRM is mainly used to perform background activities, while ERP is used to complete background activities.
Despite the differences in CRM and ERP described above, the two systems have mutually supportive relationships that share regular intelligence across the organization in a fast and skilled manner. For example, the ERP system provides rich data for the data warehouse in the CRM system, and the data analysis results of CRM and the prediction of market development can provide decision data for the ERP system. As a result, all employees involved in corporate activities can form an enterprise-wide environment through online data sharing.
Should CRM and ERP be integrated?
Often, ERP and CRM systems tend to remain independent because their contrasting architecture makes it difficult to integrate. Most companies don’t invest time and manpower to integrate the two. Instead, they use manual data input, but the result is a lot of time data input, and it is easy to make mistakes in the input process.
In fact, if you integrate your CRM and ERP systems, there is no doubt that your business will be better able to shift sales leads to sales, improve overall ROI, and simplify the sales process and improve customer service. Helps increase overall company revenue and increase efficiency. Here are five specific reasons why you should integrate CRM with your ERP system:
Improve customer management. By integrating CRM and ERP systems, employees can simultaneously access customer-related information in ERP and CRM systems without having to switch systems. Make it easier for employees to track potential customers and customers and unlock more business opportunities
Turn the sales line to sales. If you integrate CRM with ERP systems, you can better turn sales leads into sales leads, and your company’s sales process will be further automated.
Improve overall return on investment. Integrating CRM and ERP systems ensures that expenses are reduced and overall return on investment is improved.
Simplify the sales process. Integrate the two system data together to avoid the risk of both input data errors. And your sales staff is not in need of consulting warehouse to check order history or inventory issues, to avoid any poor communication.
Linking data increases productivity. Through consolidation, all employees have access to everything they need to reduce the risk and hassle of duplicate data and entries. And can improve your sales efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Should I choose CRM or ERP?
Due to funding problems, most companies don’t know how to choose between the two. In fact, if you need to manage interaction with customers, you should choose a CRM tool, because ERP is beneficial to the optimal use of planning resources. Conversely, if you are generally dissatisfied with existing business processes, you may need a new ERP. But most ERPs will have some elements of CRM. If your company is really uncertain about what you need, please discuss it with your leader and team. If you choose, you must be clear about the difference between the two (above Already mentioned), and the needs of the enterprise (this is very important) to choose the right CRM or ERP system.
