Erp Sap

The integration of front-office customer relationship management (CRM) and back-office enterprise resource planning (ERP) is creating new, customer-centric enterprisewide business architecture.

But building that architecture will not necessarily be easy. If you buy your CRM from an ERP vendor, it will look like another ERP module. But if you buy it from a CRM vendor, you'll have to plan for the integration yourself. The integration CRM, ERP creates a new business universe in the enterprise, one where the most important aspect is serving the customer.

ERP is from Mars, CRM is from Venus. However, the two software programs - CRM, ERP - must work together to serve users and facilitate the next step-Web-enabled applications. Vendors and partners must learn their customer's business priorities and key processes.

ERP vendors stress their strong suit: supplying large amounts of information to users via a range of all-encompassing software offerings. They provide the backbone information that can only come from an integrated offering. Whether CRM or ERP, Internet-enabled applications are the wave of the future.

CRM wants to deliver higher revenue and more efficiency for a business, but this is "still largely unproved. SAP has rolled out programmes designed to help users better understand and operate its software and to improve the productivity of customer relationship management tools. The ERP giant has also announced a mobile sales product and an enterprise customer relationship management suite for the end of the year.

SAP has made a number of improvements to its software designed to make it easier to use including bookmarks to users' favorite transactions. Tracking the exploding CRM market, SAP's customer-relationship management module will include sales, marketing, and call-centre software. The module is designed to help companies tie customer interactions to the rest of their businesses.

Potential users need to taker a more pragmatic approach to selecting and implementing customer relationship management systems says leading solutions provider. Too many companies are being misled by the publicity of big US vendors and by the hype surrounding CRM, ERP systems. Everyone says that they have a CRM, ERP system these days. Sales automation product vendors, contact management software companies, even database companies are presenting themselves as CRM, ERP suppliers. It's dangerous, and it's irresponsible.

What really counts is experience and skill in the provision of CRM, ERP solutions. It is time that many users and potential users started to face up to some of the harsher facts of life with regard to customer relationship management. It's time people faced up to a few facts. Companies need to pay attention to their long-term needs, not just to solving a short-term tactical problem. Some vendors are not helping by focusing too much on selling and not enough on the customers.