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If you are a
startup, a growing business or an established corporation, what systems and
software you operate with have great significance concerning your efficiency
and growth. While ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) are equally crucial for automating and streamlining your business
operations, which one is the best choice for your business? Let’s explore that
in this article- 

Let’s
understand ERP

Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) software help you streamline all your business
operations by keeping track of orders, revenue and transactions. 

It helps you
organize and handle various aspects of your business, including financial data
tracking, supply chain management, and payroll management. 

An ERP system
is beneficial for businesses when it comes to performance improvement and
effectiveness in all business transactions. 

Why
should you opt for ERP? 

1.
A single system for various business processes

An ERP system
integrates various business processes, including manufacturing, supply chain,
warehousing, distribution, order completion, accounting and HR, into a single
system. 

2.
Help track the financial health

An ERP system
monitor all your cash management processes, including- credits, debits, loans
and cash flow etc. Thereby, help you decide the financial health of your
business. It also assists you in planning your cash flow, minimizing costs, and
raising revenue. 

3.
Monitor production process

Manufacturing
and product companies can reap significant benefits from an ERP system as it
helps them track various production processes- product development, production,
and workflow management. It also gives real-time insight into the production
schedule based on the degree of integration with production abilities, module-
tracking manufacturing processes. 

Let’s
understand CRM 

A CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) software helps you automate your sales and
marketing activities, maintain a customer database, catch up with leads and
qualify them, keep a tab, visually track data, etc. 

It
facilitates consolidation of customer’s database with the help of which you can
reach out to them in a better way and improve your relationship with
them. 

Moreover, it
gathers all your sales-related activities and provides a unified customer
experience which reflects increased ROI and improved customer retention. 

Why
should you opt for CRM software? 

1.
Complete visibility into the entire buyer journey

A CRM
software integrates all the information about your leads and customers from
their contact details, social profiles, location to their past engagement with
your company. It also gets hold of the entire sales process. It allows you to
gain complete visibility into the entire buyer journey. 

2.
Upscale productivity

A CRM system
automates most of your routine tasks such as updating databases, sending
emails, setting reminders etc. Thereby it allows you to catch up some free time
to focus on core business activities. Thus, you can upscale the entire sales and
marketing team’s productivity. 

3.
Monitors data visually

Most often,
it’s not possible for your team to acquire actionable insight from the data
collected by your prospects and customers. A proper CRM software in place may
help you in this case. It allows you to monitor customer engagement regularly.
Moreover, you can gain insights into stagnant deals and other
revenue-generating activities with in-built analytics. 

ERP
Vs. CRM 

Choosing
between ERP and CRM is not an easy choice. A CRM takes a customer-centric
approach; on the other hand, an ERP revolves around a financially-centric
approach. Both of these systems have a role in contributing to the functioning
of any business. However, which system you will select depends majorly on your
priorities. 

Let’s
acknowledge some of the primary differences between ERP and CRM : 

• While ERP is known for its cost-effectiveness, a CRM is inclined
  towards profit-making. Thus, ERP can be the best choice for established
  businesses seeking to streamline their core business processes by cutting
  operational costs. 

• A CRM is all about the ways to understand your customer base and
  retain them in the long run. Thus, a CRM can be the best choice for the sales
  and marketing operations of your company. 

• Where ERP improves the back-end operations like manufacturing,
  production, finance; supply chain; warehousing; orders and HR, CRM improves
  your company’s front end operations. Such as pre-sales, product marketing,
  inbound and outbound sales and customer success teams etc. 

• ERP caters to the complex processes of various departments and
  is thus more expensive than CRM. However, many CRM software is not just
  affordable, but some of them available free as well. 

• While CRMs can suffice small and large organization’s requirements,
  ERPs are not a great fit for startups. The reason? ERP requires a big deal of
  capital and human resources that might hamper the growth of startups at the
  development stage if they choose ERP. 

• With their scalability and features, ERPs are more suitable for
  business that has multiple processes and can afford greater expenses. Thus,
  most manufacturing companies are seen opting for ERP as they seek long-term
  benefits born out of implementing expensive software like ERP. 

• CRMs, on the other hand, are the best fit for small businesses,
  software companies and freelancers that incur more straightforward accounting
  and manufacturing process and don’t have a production segment fundamentally.
  Such companies can suffice their requirements like maintaining a customer
  database, dealing with clients, and making sales with CRM at their
  resort. 

Concluding
Thoughts 

So, with the
given information, what can be the right choice- ERP or CRM? You can not choose
between these two just by at looking unique features. You may opt for both of
these systems at any given stage of your business. CRM systems are good to
start with as they are simpler, customer-centric, enables faster ROI, improves
overall effectiveness etc. Whereas you may require ERP systems once your
company starts getting more mature.

Thus,
selecting the right system for your business should solely depend on your
business requirements. 

The post ERP Vs CRM: What is the Best Choice for Your Business? first appeared on ONPASSIVE.