Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a software that manages customer interactions with a business. Its features were first developed for sales and marketing departments, particularly in the call center to manage customer service and track all customer interactions.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) serves as a shared database for all the segments of an organization. This means finances, including the general ledger (GL), accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, financial reporting, etc.
But what is the difference between CRM and ERP? While the entire organization will come to rely on both ERP and CRM systems, the fundamental difference is that ERP is primarily for financial data. Thus, some ERP systems include a CRM component, but CRM software systems do not include ERP components.
ERP and CRM systems do need to be able to share data, and this is achievable through technical integration, by a method of connecting and synchronizing your ERP software to your CRM to ensure that automated and consistent information is shared between both systems, creating a single source.
