Are ERP and CRM one and the same?
Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers; and technology is used to organize, automate and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service and technical support.
Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, is a business management software that allows a company to use a system of integrated applications to manage the business, and automate back office functions related to finance, manufacturing, budgeting and forecasting, professional services and human resources to name but a few.
To make business decisions, an attempt is made to position for one or the other, as the most effective business application in that role. But as companies and technology are ever-changing, it seems that the line between ERP and CRM are blurred, the need to compare them becoming almost moot.
These days we see ERP and CRM as complementary to one another in a sense that they enable not only the automation of many business processes, but also add controls into a business. They enable and empower people and work together to ensure that nothing slips from their site.
Understanding that there is a natural overlap, or complimentary service between ERP and CRM, and how best to leverage this, will deliver more efficient, and in some instances more cost-effective solutions. Companies can experience maximum benefit from the complimentary and overlapping roles of ERP and CRM.
