For any company or business, good customer service, knowing how to efficiently manage information and a correct workflow between the different teams that make up the company or business are key aspects for its growth.
That is why management and planning software, such as ERP or CRM, is of great importance for any type of business, whether large companies or SMEs.
These two types of tools can be confusing, as they share a similarity in the aspect of driving business growth and productivity. However, they have particular functions and characteristics that differentiate them.
Broadly speaking, we can say that an ERP is like an expense manager to optimise all these costs. While CRM allows you to generate more sales and, therefore, increase revenue.
However, throughout this post we are going to talk about the differences between an ERP vs. CRM.
What is an ERP?
ERP software was initially developed for the manufacturing and production industries, as they have to control the ordering of different components, their storage, stock control and production costs.
However, it has become one of the main management tools for any type of company.
It is also a fundamental solution for the day-to-day operations of accounting, finance, orders, logistics, human resources and inventory departments.
It is arguably the perfect tool to keep track of all the resources of a company.
What is a CRM?
CRM systems are software designed to boost the capacity of a business or company, with the customer as the focus. In other words, CRM is a system that is responsible for reinforcing, streamlining and boosting the sales, marketing, customer service and communication processes between the different contacts and customers of a company.
In this way, CRM tools allow a more organised, efficient and automated management of all those commercial processes within the company that are related to an interaction with the end customer, suppliers or partners.
The purpose of CRM is to organise customer information and put it at the centre of the company for commercial follow-up.
This software is essential for creating marketing strategies.
For this reason, CRM is a particularly useful solution for ecommerce and startups, although it is still a very complete tool for any type of company.
ERP vs. CRM
The main difference between ERP and CRM is that while the former is used for enterprise resource planning, the latter is used for customer relationship management.
In other words, the ERP would be the tool that allows us to manage the “back office” of the company and the CRM would be the tool that allows us to manage every interaction with the customer “Front office”. The real power lies in the integration of the ERP with the CRM.
Their benefits also vary. In ERP, we are talking about optimising the management of internal resources and, in CRM, about managing the achievement of marketing/sales objectives and proposing business strategies that help us to improve deviations in the event of non-compliance.
In any case, despite their advantages, working with an ERP and a CRM together is commonplace. In fact, both CRM and ERP are an excellent investment if you know how to make the most of them, and many ERPs allow you to incorporate a fully compatible and integrated CRM module. As we have already mentioned, the real power lies in its integration and in being able to access all our customer information from anywhere and at any time, improving every interaction.