Page 171 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Unit 10: Enterprise Resource Planning – I

Self Assessment Notes

Fill in the blanks:
1. The term ...................................... originally referred to how a large organization planned to
use organizational wide resources.

2. An ERP system is based on a common database and a modular ......................................
design.
3. In practice the ERP system may comprise a set of discrete applications, each maintaining
a discrete ...................................... within one physical database.

10.2 ERP and CRM

CRM means “customer relation management.” which is software designed to manage all
customer interactions in an organized way. It is totally focused on customer management –
capturing information pertaining to customer accounts only.

For an entrepreneur who is planning to expand his business, it seems to require a great deal of
software which benefits for the organization in terms of profits, expansion and accuracy. CRM and
ERP are both business designed software’s, but for an Entrepreneur it is a matter of trouble as to
which software he should apply. ERP and CRM software both focuses on efficiently integrating
the different business processes – production, finance, sales, marketing and customer
relationships.
From point of view of managerial ideology, the ERP management idea is enhancing the planning
and control of internal resources in an enterprise, whereas the primary motive behind the CRM
concept is to establish, develop and maintain customer relationships. CRM and ERP solution
integrated across your enterprise in real-time providing your company with the best workflow
automation possible. These include CRM, Inventory Management, Product Management, Project
Management, accounting and Human Resources Management solutions. Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are the two of the
most popular business systems, sharing some common features but differing in most. Many
software developers have also managed to build systems which can perform as CRM and
ERP systems at a time because both are ultimately working to achieve the goals of the business
organization.

ERP systems are enterprise-oriented systems which improve coordination between different
company departments, not just limited to sales and marketing, help to gather key enterprise
data and manage these data in an unified database, whereas, CRM systems are more customer-
oriented which mainly improve coordination between sales and marketing departments,
automate sales and marketing and customer service practices, enhances communication between
sales persons, gather key information about customers and opportunities, and manage these
information is a centralized database. Both software applications are different but both are even
supporting same business technological fields.
CRM and ERP have a collaborative relationship. Imagine that CRM is the point of a large V that
faces outward to your customer base, where it is used to track and predict sales. To back up that
effort, information needs to be coordinated with the sales department’s organizations — finance,
manufacturing, product development and marketing. But how do these teams communicate
with each other effectively? That’s where ERP comes in. ERP is an internal system that coordinates
information between various departments and ensures the lifeblood flows through your
enterprise to help profitability. Definitely CRM is a part of ERP, but both relatively perform for
the company integration.

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