Difference Between ERP Software and CRM

Enterprise resource planning is fully integrated software that has functionality for all the core aspects of business and integrates all the departments of the organization while customer relationship management application or software focuses on the activities related to customers like, quotes, contracts, service, reminders, service reminders etc. ERP ensures better and real time integration and communication between all the departments of the organization for increasing profitability while CRM enhances customer relationship management, acts as a front desk of the organization and an information center for sales people. Some critical information which can be very useful for the sales people but may not be available at the right time due to slow processing of the data is avoided with the use of CRM software. Also read about CRM Best Practices.

CRM software alone may not be the solution for all the problems necessary to be resolved for better business. That is where ERP comes in, its capability to bring the other modules of the organization like manufacturing, product development, marketing, warehouse, inventory etc under one umbrella provides the link to CRM application to look into the organization for updated information to provide it to its user. If an organization uses CRM with ERP, for every new order the CRM application can communicate with the warehouse for the availability of the required stocks and if ready stocks are not available then with the production module to check its availability at the earliest and can provide its customer the exact shipping date of the product at one instance. Whole of this activity can be done without any manual interference which not only saves valuable man hours but organizations can be assured of 24 hours working and support to their valuable customers.

ERP and CRM software can work independently too but together they provide the edge which an organization needs to increase its business. The enhanced and proper working within the organization and real time complete information to the sales people can help them in generating the new business. Not only for new business these two software together also help in better customer retention for regular business. CRM can help in making customer aware about new products, its qualities and comparisons which can make the task of sales people easier. For service based industries CRM can be more than simple software as it can ensure prompt and timely services with regular reminders and can provide to staff the necessary details of previous calls and support given to a particular customer.

Customer feedbacks, inquiries and complaints are always in the form of unstructured data but it can be an extremely valuable source of information and basis of the organization's new strategy and planning to have more and more satisfied customers. CRM software can transform this data into valuable information without any manual interference and time wastage. This information supplied to the management can be used to make changes in the organizations working and can be easily implemented with the help of ERP software.

CRM and ERP software are complimentary to each other and can work together for better business management of the organization in any industry. Some ERP software come with inbuilt CRM module in the main application while most of the ERP software provide this software as separate module which can communicate with different ERP software. Read about CRM Trends In India.