ERP and CRM. Two systems that are more than often used in the same sentence. Yet the two solutions have two fundamentally different tasks.
While CRM serves the business processes in the customer-facing front office, ERP systems provide support in the Back Office. The ERP manages the recording of incoming and outgoing goods and generates receipts, delivery notes and invoices. All in all, it takes over the planning and control of the company's resources. The tasks of the CRM includes contact management and history, sales control and campaign management. It therefore offers the best all-round view of all customer data.
To ensure that the business processes run smoothly, CRM and ERP work together. Even if, for example, a customer has long been noted in the CRM system, the ERP only registers it when a subsequent process also creates it there.
Or when a service contract is renewed, one has to inform the accounting department (ERP) as well as the CRM, since it writes the invoice. However, the CRM system must also know afterwards whether the customer has paid the new service contract.
If the two systems do not work together, the result is data gaps due to the interruptions in the business processes between the front office and the back office described above. Every employee has to interact with both systems. This not only means a lot of manual effort, but is also extremely error-prone. If you manage both systems separately, some objects such as customer data or contracts are often in the CRM as well as in the ERP. If you change something in one system, it still remains incomplete in the other.
If you integrate CRM and ERP systems, these problems do not occur. In addition, integration has other advantages:
Improving customer relationship management
On the one hand, the customer processes run more smoothly and on the other hand, they can be better connected with the company processes. However, the integration of CRM and ERP particularly improves the cooperation of customer-related areas ? such as sales and processing-related areas of ERP.
Avoidance of duplicate data maintenance through ERP and CRM
Through the ERP-CRM integration, the users of the respective systems are supplied from both data collections. When a new order is created, all data on the order itself and the customer data are automatically transferred from the CRM to the ERP.
Improved data management: clear and comprehensible
In an ERP as well as a CRM system, all important data such as customers, articles, sales documents etc. are available under a clear, uniform interface.
By integrating both software solutions, redundant data storage can be avoided. The data of both systems are constantly synchronised.
This leads to a much clearer data management that is also comprehensible in its individual steps. Thus, the management has the possibility to make well-founded decisions based on the available data information. This makes integration with ERP and CRM efficient beyond business processes.
Continuation :
ERP&CRM ? Part 2: Defining business processes
ERP&CRM ? Part 3: Possibilities of integration
News from SAP B1 "Remote Control" - CRM for Outlook
Two in one: 6 reasons to integrate CRM and ERP
Part 2: Introduce CRM in B2B sales
Part 1: CRM in B2B sales
A connection for a (successful) life: ERP and CRM linked
