ERP Software

All That You Want to Know About Customer Relationship Management ERP Modules

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP modules help businesses manage their customer relations.  All CRM ERP modules vary from vendor to vendor in terms of functionality.  However the underlying and most basic types of functionality included in a Customer Relationship Management ERP module is:
•    Sales
•    Services
•    Marketing

The sales functionality provided by a CRM ERP module helps sales personnel manage and execute the entire sales process from first call until product or service closure.  The service functionality provided by a CRM ERP module helps manage service orders, service contracts, warranties, scheduling, and Service Level Agreements or SLAs.  The marketing functionality provided by a CRM ERP module helps manage marketing campaigns, leads, and planning. 
Some popular Customer Relationship Management vendors are:
•    Oracle
•    Microsoft
•    SAP
•    Opentaps
•    Epicor
•    SugarCRM
•    openCRX
•    Salesforce.com
•    ienterprises

Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, and Epicor offer on-site proprietary Customer Relationship Management solutions.  Opentaps, SugarCRM, and openCRX are open source Customer Relationship Management solutions.  Salesforce.com and ienterprises offer SaaS (Software as a Service) Customer Relationship Management solutions.  CRM solutions can be purchased independently as a stand along solution, or, as a module within an Enterprise Resource Planning solution.  Not all Enterprise Resource Planning vendors offer a Customer Relationship Management ERP module.  Some ERP vendors sell their ERP modules separately while other ERP vendors only offer ERP modules as part of the Enterprise Resource Planning solution.  This means that whether you want a Customer Relationship Management ERP module or not, you are going to get one.

Customer Relationship Management ERP modules and solutions first became popular in the 1990s.  Customer Relationship Management solutions where originally built to help businesses track their customers and the purchases their customers made.   While CRM solutions still perform this task, some solutions provide much more functionality.  Robust CRM solutions are often intended for enterprises with a huge customer base.  However, there are simpler Customer Relationship Management solutions on the market for small and medium sized businesses.   It doesn’t matter what size your business is or the industry you are in because there is bound to be a CRM solution or CRM ERP module on the market today that will suit your needs.

Written by :

kristine H