Before talking about the principles and features of the implementation of a customer relationship management system and a number of related marketing mechanisms in the 1C ERP system, we must once again remember what main tasks the CRM system solves.

If we consolidate all the requirements that a business places on CRM and ERP systems (in the second case, as a system that includes a CRM subsystem), it becomes clear that the entire toolkit of any modern CRM system, both b2b and b2c, is built around a completely tasks that are understandable for any trading company:

• Leading customers in the early stages of interaction, from the first interest in the product to the moment of sale;
• Stimulating repeat sales;
• Reducing the risks of losing a client base or leaking information about the history of interactions and informal agreements with clients.

The central link around which all work in the 1C ERP CRM subsystem is built is the client. It is in the context of clients that interactions are recorded, transactions are formalized, the execution of the transaction is monitored and the result is recorded.

Figure No. 1. The principle of implementing CRM in 1C ERP

Functionality of the CRM system in 1C ERP

In general, CRM functionality in 1C ERP includes:

• Registration of any interactions with clients;
• Registration, maintenance and monitoring of transaction execution, the ability to assess the potential of a transaction at an early stage of the sales process;
• Possibility of centralized storage of any additional information about clients;
• The ability to group clients into groups based on any formal criteria and analyze work with clients in the context of these groups;
• Conducting and monitoring the effectiveness of marketing events (exhibitions, seminars), as well as advertising channels;
• Accounting and organization of the process of working with claims received from clients;
• Rich analytical tools: sales funnel construction, ABC, XYZ - analysis, BCG - analysis;
• The ability to create mailing lists (including scheduled ones) for customer groups using modern information delivery channels: email, SMS mailings;
• Analysis of managers' performance indicators.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the separation in the system of the concepts of client and counterparty, which corresponds to the real structure of relations between an organization and its partners, when several counterparties (legal entities) are hidden behind one client, which can change over time.

The system allows you to analyze the relationship with the client as a whole, regardless of the name of which legal entity he is currently working with your organization.

The advantages of implementing CRM in 1C ERP include the fact that the system is built in such a way that there is no strict need to use all the available functionality at the same time. It is enough to leave only those features that are currently in demand by the company, and disable unused functions, thereby simplifying the interface and significantly reducing employee labor costs for processing transactions in the system.

Guiding the client in the early stages of the sales process: from interaction to transaction

Communication with a client begins with recording interaction with him. 1C ERP provides the following types of interactions:

• Face-to-face meeting
• Phone call (both incoming and outgoing)
• SMS message
• Letter by email. At the same time, the system includes a simple email client that allows you not only to receive, but also to send letters directly from the system, saving the entire correspondence history in one place.

The continuation of communication with the client, from the point of view of working with the system, is to register the client’s interest in the company’s product by registering a transaction document in the system.

Figure No. 2. Example of completing a transaction with a client

It is recommended to formalize a transaction in the early stages of working with a client, when not only the specific composition of product items or services of interest to the client may not yet be clear, but the approximate amount of the potential sale may not even be known. The advantage of this approach is the ability to manage the sales process (including having previously determined and recorded in the form of a transaction the regulations that the manager must follow during the sales process), and then be able to analyze at what stage the deal was won or lost, and whether everything necessary was done manager in the process of working with a client.

Accounting for marketing activities in 1C ERP

Registration and tracking of marketing events (conducting exhibitions, seminars) and channels of advertising interactions, strictly speaking, does not relate to the functions of CRM systems. Maintaining and recording such information is rather the task of the marketing department, while CRM serves the purposes of the sales department. But as often happens in practice, it is not always possible to separate these two tasks.

The purpose of marketing activities, as a rule, is to attract new clients or stimulate sales of existing ones, so it is very important to track the effectiveness of such activities at the stage of working with clients: how the client learned about the company, what prompted him to contact the company, complete a transaction, make a purchase. In 1C ERP, the functionality of marketing activities is closely related to the CRM block; it makes no sense to consider them separately.

Figure No. 3. Accounting for marketing activities and advertising interactions with the client in 1C ERP

The diagram above shows that information about where the client learned about us and the reasons that prompted him to contact us runs like a red thread through the system. We can clarify this information at any point of communication, from the moment of registration in the client’s system, before completing a transaction or registering an appeal, for example, in the form of a telephone call.

You can disable some of the CRM functions in ERP, but still, for those sections that you use in your work, it remains possible to keep track of events and interaction channels.

Classification of clients and assessment of managerial performance in 1C ERP

The 1C ERP system implements a number of specialized reports and tools that allow you to evaluate the results of work on the CRM block. These include capabilities that are basic for any product - building a sales funnel or a summary analysis of all transactions registered in the system in various sections, to flexible customer classification tools. The latter include: ABC/XYZ classification of clients, construction of a BCG matrix based on a previously carried out classification, comparison of different groups of clients with each other, etc.

Figure No. 4. Example of ABC and XYZ customer classification settings

Summarizing

In the article, we briefly talked about the capabilities of the CRM subsystem as part of the complex information system “1C:ERP Enterprise Management 2”.

Of course, the real capabilities of the system are much wider; for example, we did not touch upon the functions that stand at the interface of the CRM subsystem with other subsystems: the process of surveying clients, the ability to set up mailings (both according to a plan and according to events), managing the product range or conducting competitive intelligence.

Finally, we would like to emphasize once again that the CRM system cannot be considered as a separate product. It is important to understand that the CRM system is part of the overall information system of the organization, and the implementation of CRM, divorced from the logically related subsystems of sales, marketing and contract management, deprives this system of some of the advantages.

Class systems ERP

ERP Definition

The basic concepts of production management (including the term “ERP”) can be considered quite established. In this area, the recognized "de facto standard" is the terminology of the American Inventory and Production Management Association ( American Production and Inventory Control Society, APICS). Basic terms and definitions are given in the APICS Dictionary, which is regularly updated as management theory and practice develops. It is this publication that contains the most complete and accurate definition of an ERP system.

According to the APICS Dictionary, the term "ERP system" ( Enterprise Resource Planning- Enterprise resource management) can be used in two meanings.

ERP system– an information system for identifying and planning all enterprise resources that are necessary for sales, production, purchasing and accounting in the process of fulfilling customer orders.

ERP methodology is a methodology for effective planning and management of all enterprise resources that are necessary for sales, production, purchasing and accounting for the execution of customer orders in the areas of production, distribution and service provision.

Thus, the term ERP can mean not only an information system, but also the corresponding management methodology implemented and supported by this information system.

2 Differences between ERP and MRPII.

Currently, almost all developers of MRPII/ERP systems classify their systems as ERP. "ERP" is a very fashionable abbreviation that can increase sales of a system that essentially does not belong to this class. It comes to the point where they begin to position financial and management systems with a weak production unit as “full-fledged ERP systems,” misleading consumers. This confusion is compounded by the lack of an ERP standard.

Let us compare two classes of systems - ERP and MRPII.

It should be noted right away that for both MRPII systems and ERP systems, production is the main one. They are, of course, developing in response to market demands: new functionality is being added, solutions are being transferred to new technology platforms. However, production subsystems remain central to the systems under consideration, and the differences between MRPII/ERP systems lie precisely in the area of ​​production planning. These differences are related to the depth of planning implementation, which is due to the orientation of these systems towards different market segments.

ERP systems are created for large multifunctional and geographically distributed manufacturing corporations (for example, holding companies, TNCs, financial industrial groups, etc.). MRPII systems are aimed at the market of medium-sized enterprises that do not require the full power of ERP systems.

Actually, the difference between MRPII and ERP systems is already clear from their names: on the one hand, Enterprise Resources Planning, on the other, Manufacturing Resources Planning.

The significant differences between ERP and MRP II can be expressed by the following formula:

ERP= MRPII + implementation of all types of production + integration of resource planning for various areas of the company's activities + multi-unit planning

Of course, many MRPII systems are developing in terms of planning depth and, in some respects, are approaching ERP systems. However, "for some" does not mean "for all", so the use of the term "ERP" must be handled with caution.

At the same time, among ERP and MRPII systems, not all can offer solutions for a process-type production planning and management system.

The modern market of information management systems consists of three (according to other estimates - five) leading systems, which, in fact, belong to the ERP class, and many “advanced” MRPII class systems.

The undisputed leaders are the SAP R/3 systems of the German company SAP AG, Oracle Applications of the American company Oracle and Baan, developed by the Dutch company Baan (in May 2000, Baan was acquired by the British holding Invensys). Sometimes OneWorld by J.D. Edwards and PeopleSoft, produced by the company of the same name, are added to this “elite” list.

As for MRPII systems, there are a larger number of solutions, each of which carries a unique combination of functional and technological features. All of them differ in varying degrees of elaboration of production, financial and other functions, so with the help of consultants, enterprises can choose a system that best suits their needs. Therefore, "MRPII" is not a sign of a flawed system, but an indicator that the system is aimed at the market of medium-sized enterprises.

3 Characteristics of ERP systems

The main goal of the ERP concept is to extend the principles of MRPII (Manufactory Resource Planning) to the management of modern corporations. The ERP concept is a superstructure on the MRPII methodology. Without making any changes to the mechanism for planning production resources, it allows you to solve a number of additional problems associated with the complication of the company's structure.

The ERP concept is still not standardized. When the question arises about classifying a specific management information system into the class of developed MRP II systems or into the ERP class, experts disagree, since they identify different criteria for a system to belong to the ERP class. However, summarizing the various points of view, it is possible to indicate the main features that ERP systems should have.

ERP class systems are distinguished by a set of the following properties:

Versatility in terms of types of production; support for multi-echelon production planning; wider (compared to MRPII) scope of integrated resource planning; inclusion of a powerful corporate finance planning and accounting unit into the system; implementation of decision support tools into the system.

3.1 Possibility of planning production of all types within one system

Even in an ordinary enterprise (not to mention a corporation), production of various types can coexist - project, discrete, continuous (process).

Enterprises operating in continuous process production include enterprises in the food, chemical, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, oil, and metallurgical industries.

Enterprises operating in a discrete cycle belong to the machine-building and passenger industries.

Example 1. An enterprise with the main production of a continuous type may have auxiliary production containing mechanical repair shops focused on a discrete production cycle. In addition, the enterprise can initiate new production, which implies project planning and management. Then this enterprise will feature production of all three types - project, discrete and continuous.

To support the planning and management of the entire enterprise as a whole, the information system must be able to work with each of these types of production. ERP class systems contain a set of modules, each of which is specialized in a specific type of production.

3.2 Ensuring multi-echelon production planning

Large production associations, distributed geographically, may consist of separate structural divisions or branches (units). Each branch usually has a separate complete production process. However, often divisions are interconnected by the supply chain of certain units of production. This complicates the process of planning activities, both of individual divisions and of the entire production association. To prevent downtime and overload of individual production facilities due to parts not delivered on time, procurement/production schedules of various production divisions of the company must be coordinated with each other.

The operating logic of the plan aggregation tools built into ERP systems is simple. First, own procurement/supply and production plans are formed for each enterprise-link of a single organizational structure. For each product item included in the intra-production supply network, indicate source(consumer) and priority supply of this unit. The ERP system then creates a multi-tier (aggregated) plan. Before submitting these plans for approval, the system conducts a scenario assessment of their feasibility. As in conventional MRPII systems, the feasibility of plans is assessed by the system creating a flow of orders of dependent demand at the level of the entire production association. When critical conditions are identified, plans are adjusted and only then submitted for approval.

3.3 Expanding the scope of integrated resource planning

In classic MRPII systems, integrated resource planning covered only the production, warehouse, supply and sales departments of the enterprise. The actions of other departments and services closely related to the production process (for example, repair, transport) were not involved in planning. In the same way, design work remained behind the scenes.

ERP systems make it possible to involve all departments of the enterprise that use these resources in one way or another into the sphere of integrated resource planning. This allows you to optimize the business operations of the enterprise, as well as coordinate the actions of all services and departments to ensure their efficient operation.

In this regard, the following additional subsystems appear in ERP systems:

Planning and management of production projects implementation. In this subsystem, the project is analyzed (development of its structure, allocation of subprojects, division of subprojects into separate works), formation of network work schedules, planning of material and labor resources, equipment, financial costs for the implementation of these works, management of the progress of their implementation. Planning the work of service and technical services. The subsystem allows you to plan resources and optimize the performance of maintenance work on production facilities. The subsystem has a strong influence on the operation of the production planning module. If an emergency or planned repair of a certain unit of production capacity is carried out, the subsystem must notify the production planning module that this unit of production capacity is blocked for a certain period and indicate an alternative production route for this period. Planning and managing distributed resources(Distribution Resources Planning). This subsystem provides the ability to work with a complex multi-echelon structure of sales departments and warehouses. In particular, its competence includes planning the work of transport services. Using the subsystem you can: minimize transport costs for the delivery of raw materials and components; organize a balanced distribution of materials and products across the company’s warehouses; select optimal transport routes when carrying out inter-warehouse movements (when there are several warehouses) or movements between sales divisions (when there is a network of dealer organizations). Planning and management of after-sales and special services. As the name suggests, the subsystem is designed to manage all types of services.

In many modern MRPII systems, subsystems “Project”, “Service”, “Transport”, etc. appear. However, although these subsystems record costs and income, budgeting, they often do not have the functionality necessary for ERP to create a flow orders, generating integrated planning of resource and capacity requirements throughout the enterprise.

Despite their fairly broad functionality, ERP systems are not fully integrated management systems: many enterprises have divisions whose activities, although related to the production process, do not fit into the existing ideology of MRPII/ERP systems. To automate the work of such departments, they use their own systems. We are talking, for example, about computer-aided design systems (CAD), systems for design and technological preparation of production (PDM systems - Product Data Management). Therefore, in reality, ERP systems (as well as MRP II systems) are almost always used in conjunction with similar subsystems.

3.4 Planning and accounting of corporate finances

Implementation of support for resource planning of an extensive corporation in ERP systems entails the need to strengthen the financial unit, implement the management of complex financial flows and the possibility of corporate consolidation. Therefore, ERP systems include powerful corporate finance management systems characterized by the following features:

Support for a multi-level management structure - the ability to analyze financial data both at the level of individual divisions and at the level of the entire company; flexibility - support for multiple time zones, languages, national currencies and accounting and reporting systems; a fully functional accounting and management accounting apparatus; conducting financial planning; conducting settlements with debtors and creditors; the presence of a device for tracking the repayment of loans, including maintaining a history of relations with creditors, analyzing the state of their affairs, searching for information about them; full integration with data from other subsystems of ERP systems.

3.5 Incorporating powerful decision support tools into systems

Management decisions are made by people. The ERP system itself is not a tool for making management decisions; it only supplies the information necessary for this. Real support for making management decisions is provided by special analytical tools entered into ERP systems (usually these tools are called OLAP - On-Line Analysis Processing).

Here are some capabilities of decision support systems:

Monitoring the performance of various areas and services to identify and eliminate weak links, as well as to improve the structure of business processes and organizational units; analysis of the activities of individual departments; aggregation of data from various departments; analysis of indicators of various areas of financial and economic activity of the enterprise to highlight promising and unprofitable areas of business; identifying trends developing both within the enterprise and in the market.

1 Definition of CRM

The last decade of the twentieth century is the beginning of a new generation of products related to corporate information systems. Despite the fact that leading enterprises are introducing powerful ERP-class systems to strengthen themselves in the market, this is no longer enough to increase the company’s income.

The reasons for this situation lie in an area seemingly far from production, namely, in the area of ​​human relations and psychology. Let us turn to management theory, which has successfully absorbed the laws of psychology, and to market economics.

Currently, the epithet “fierce” is applicable to competition in the global market for goods and services. On the one hand, business profitability is reduced due to the oversaturation of domestic markets with similar goods and services, as well as due to difficulties in organizing exports to other regional markets. On the other hand, business owners demand from management to increase profits and sales volumes.

The currently widely used solution consists of coordinated actions of the WHOLE ENTERPRISE, and not just the marketing department, to search for, attract and, most importantly, retain a client.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)) is a strategy based on the use of management and information technologies, with the help of which companies accumulate knowledge about customers to build mutually beneficial relationships with them.

Such relationships help increase profits because they attract new customers and help retain old ones.

CRM is a client-oriented strategy, on the one hand, creating a markup “above the market” by providing individual service to each client, and on the other hand, focusing on long-term relationships, including to the detriment of short-term economic objectives. Both sides of the CRM coin require the creation and maintenance of long-term relationships with clients at a level that is qualitatively higher than a simple declaration of “the customer is always right.” The goal of CRM is not just to increase sales volume, but to profitably “link” the client’s needs with the seller’s capabilities, which requires joint teamwork of various functional departments of the organization for the client.

Thus, CRM "in big" is a strategy for "distinctive" business. CRM “in small” is actually information technology that allows you to formalize and automate various aspects of interaction with clients of marketing, sales and service support departments based on automatic/automated processes (including sales) and a single “information space” of the organization. That is, all information about each client is consolidated by exchanging data with other information systems. By combining key blocks of information about contacts, organizations, transactions, orders/projects and connections between these “entities,” a CRM system allows, based on facts, to learn everything about customer behavior and select an economically feasible way to serve them, conducting business “proactively.”

A study of the reasons for the development of CRM systems is given by Sergei Kolesnikov in the article “Logistics Chains” [Kolesnikov 2003].

2 CRM market

The CRM market can be divided into two parts - average And large. All Western providers of CRM solutions position their products for medium or large businesses. Medium businesses include companies whose minimum turnover is $25-500 million, and the maximum fluctuates in the range from $500 million to $1 billion. Large businesses, accordingly, include companies with a turnover of over $1 billion .

CRM products offered by Western suppliers can be classified into seven main categories:

SFA (Sales Force Automation) - automation of the activities of sales representatives; MA (Marketing Automation) - automation of marketing activities; CSA, CSS (Customer Service Automation, Customer Service Support) - automation of customer support and service; Call/Contact Center Management - call processing centers, contact centers; Field Service Management - management of geographically remote units or users; PRM (Partner Relationship Management) - management of relationships with partners (not suppliers, but elements of the distribution network that share risks); Help Desk - technical support for users.

The market contains both products that provide certain narrow functionality (for example, contact management) and full-featured integrated CRM systems that combine several modules (in particular, sales, marketing, service support, project management and e-commerce modules).

The main difference between CRM systems and all other enterprise information systems is as follows. Other systems (ERP, document management) minimize costs and/or “put things in order,” which means they work for efficiency and economy (reducing the purchase price), while CRM systems are designed to increase business efficiency: by selecting the right clients and correctly building relationships from the first times.

Features of the implementation of CRM systems are shown in the article by Viktor Biryukov and Vladimir Drozhzhinov [Biryukov, Drozhzhinov, 2001].

3.1 SFA (Sales Force Automation) - automation of the activities of sales representatives

The basis of the CRM system is sales automation applications (Sales Force Automation, SFA). They are assigned the following functions:

Maintaining a calendar of events and planning work; contact management(thanks to him, not a single important call or personal message will be missed); work with clients(each client will be served at the highest level, thanks to the recorded history of interaction with him); monitoring potential sales(not a single potential opportunity will be missed, no matter how busy the employee’s schedule); flow organization of sales(effective sales cycle management); improving forecast accuracy sales; automatic preparation of commercial proposals(frees employees from routine work); providing information on prices; automatic updating the bonus amount depending on the completion of assigned tasks; provision up-to-date information on the state of affairs in regional offices; generation of reports(effective tools for automatically generating reports on performance results); organization of telephone sales(creation and distribution of a list of potential clients, automatic dialing, call registration, receiving orders).

SFA is complemented by a sales configurator, which allows you to configure certain products from components. Configuration rules are built into the application itself, which allows customers to make purchases online.

In modern CRM systems, SFA applications are supplemented with marketing automation tools (Marketing Automation, MA). These applications allow you to:

organize marketing campaigns(provides tools for planning, developing, conducting and analyzing the results of marketing campaigns, both traditional and via the Internet); create marketing materials and manage them (including automatic mailing); generate a list of target audiences(creation of lists of potential clients and their distribution among sales representatives); track budgeting and forecasting results marketing campaigns; lead marketing encyclopedia(a repository of information about products, prices and competitors).

MA applications provide marketing managers with a powerful tool for developing, executing and analyzing marketing campaigns, as well as performing other marketing functions. Using joint MA and SFA applications, you can create work plans for salespeople and track their implementation.

Example 1. Mailing lists that are well known to all e-mail users. Often, in order to better “recognize” the interests and needs of its customers, a company organizes a subscription to a newsletter on a certain topic. In parallel with sending out news, the company gets the opportunity to organize surveys of potential customers and promote its products.

3.3 CSA, CSS (Customer Service Automation, Customer Service Support) -automation services support And service clients

Customer Service Automation & Support (CSA/CSS) applications have recently become of paramount importance, since in a highly competitive environment, retaining a profitable customer can be achieved primarily through high quality service.

Typically, this category of applications includes call processing and Internet self-service tools. CSS applications enable you to meet individual customer needs quickly, accurately and efficiently by providing the following functions:

needs monitoring client (service department employees are always aware of the problems and preferences of a particular customer of services); monitoring the progress of applications(the process is tracked automatically); mobile sales monitoring(at any time you can obtain information about the quality of the service, its cost, customer satisfaction, deadlines for completing the application, etc.); maintaining a knowledge base(an effective tool for reducing the cost of services - most problems can be resolved during the client’s first call); control over the execution of service agreements(automatic tracking of terms and conditions); managing customer requests through prioritization.

CSS applications transform customer service departments from costly to profitable. Being integrated with the SFA and MA applications, they ensure that every customer contact with the company is used to sell additional services (cross-sell) and more expensive products (up-sell).

Example 2. The work of courier delivery services, such as UPS (http://www.ups.com), FedEx, is “transparent” for the consumer. The Web servers of these companies allow each client to find out the status of the sent package, including where the package is located, how it is transported, the time the package was received, etc.

Other features:

Preparation of reports for senior management; integration with ERP (with back office, Internet, external data); data synchronization (including data stored in multiple portable devices, application servers and various databases); electronic commerce (B2B and B2C procurement management through the EDI system, Web server and other means); mobile sales (generation of orders, transmission of information to sales representatives outside the office in real time via mobile devices).

The essence of ERP systems is to automate all business processes using a single integrated package and make you forget about the integration problem. Where did this name come from? First, materials requirements planning (MRP) systems appeared, followed by more complex manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) systems, which involved a higher level of integration. What should we take care of after we're done with resource planning? Of course, about enterprise resource management! But in fact, it was not at all about solving absolutely all issues; in fact, only the abbreviation was changed.

Today, many large ERP system developers sell customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

Can CRM solutions actually work as promised? The fact is that this software only opens the way to maintaining relationships with customers. In this sense, CRM solutions are fundamentally different from ERP systems. When implementing an ERP system, you can choose one of three possible options: accept those business processes that are implemented in the software package, adapt the software to existing business processes, or revise business processes and then customize the software taking into account their features.

That's not how CRM systems work. Enterprise resource planning is not really the main problem solved by ERP programs, while CRM systems are designed specifically for customer relationship management.

If your organization is planning to implement a CRM system, you need to clearly understand the four key concepts that underlie it.

The first of them is defined by customers. As I have said many times, customers are usually the people who make purchasing decisions. This distinguishes them from the consumers who use your products and services, as well as from the “wallet owners” who provide the necessary funds. The CRM system is aimed at consumers. Of course, the task is simplified if the customer, consumer and “wallet owner” are the same person.

The second concept reveals the meaning of the term CRM. A company implementing a CRM system believes that good relationships with customers are among its assets. This means that it strives to maintain these relationships, is ready to allocate funds to strengthen them, and intends to evaluate the return received - the profit accumulated over the period of work with each specific customer. For those who understand this, the difference between customer service and CRM becomes clear - while customer service involves performing only one operation at a time, CRM systems integrate all operations with each customer.

The third concept states that not every organization is ready to accept the conditions of CRM. Similar to models that analyze the existing developments and potential necessary for successful software design and performance of certain work in the field of information technology, there are also models for the implementation of CRM projects. The level of progress varies across industries, but a fairly high degree of development is required to implement a CRM model.

There is a fourth, perhaps the most important concept: relationships with customers cannot be left to fate: you yourself must be their architect. This means that you cannot start with an analysis of existing customers. At the first stage, you should outline to your clients the goals that you set for yourself, and based on this, determine the procedure for building relationships.

Finally, relationships with customers can only be successful if there is ongoing interaction, usually between a specific customer and a specific employee. CRM software is a tool that helps employees perform operations more efficiently.

CRM and ERP are two systems that are designed to automate enterprise management processes. The systems are similar to each other primarily due to the idea laid down by the developers. ERP is needed for mass automation of enterprise operations. If we talk about CRM, then this is application software that allows you to automate routine processes and methods of working with clients. Many experts call the two products competitors, but is that really true? This topic deserves a separate discussion.

System differences

Using ERP, a company can effectively implement the process of managing databases with information about enterprise resources. Working with this information makes it much easier:

• issues of planning the volume of raw materials required for production;
• personnel policy;
• modernization of equipment.

The difference between CRM lies in functionality. The program helps to effectively fight for consumers in a highly competitive environment. To increase sales, you need to establish effective interaction with clients (potential buyers). The software automates all the stages that make up the partner relationship.

To put it simply, CRM does the work of an organizer, since it can take into account even the smallest details (data that no one initially paid attention to). But ultimately, it is these unaccounted data that can have a decisive impact on the outcome of the transaction. This is the difference. ERP is focused on company management processes, and the main task of CRM is to increase sales volume plus profit.

These two systems cannot be called obvious competitors, but they oppose each other. However, if you use them wisely in tandem, the enterprise will only benefit from it.

ERP is a system for large-scale production automation. It is suitable for the largest enterprises that always operate at full capacity, have a huge staff, and the number of clients in the hundreds of thousands. This whole huge machine will be fully automated. There is no need to think about synchronization with other systems or modifications. In addition to sales control, personnel records, management, accounting activities, and other activities are systematized. All divisions of the enterprise, no matter how large they are, will operate in one system. ERP becomes a tool for a manager or manager, allowing him to monitor the work of an enterprise on “one screen”.

What to choose: CRM or ERP

Before moving on to comparing ERP and CRM, it must be said that the latter software is better suited for small industry companies. This system is always tailored to a specific industry and has advanced analytical functionality. CRM eliminates unnecessary paperwork and completely takes over everyday routine processes. CRM is a good alternative to the rather heavy ERP, but you need to choose the right functionality. It is important that the functions of the selected software are relevant, if not now, then at least in the near future. Overload with a set of unnecessary tools, confusion with access - all this can easily confuse staff and not only will not ease the load, but will also make it unbearable.

Systems integration

It is impossible to argue with the benefits of ERP. In fact, any company can organize effective activities at each of the production stages using this software. But implementing the system is not easy; it takes up to 3 years and significantly adjusts the usual activities of the enterprise. There is a lightweight option that integrates much faster and adapts to the characteristics of the team already employed at the enterprise. This simplified system can be launched at an enterprise by its full-time system administrator.

The CRM integration process is much simpler. Specialists selling licensed software can perform all the settings and complete the implementation process at the request of the client. Also, many service providers offer training courses on the implemented software for staff. Integration of CRM will allow you to create a single customer database in which you can track the entire history of his relationship with the company and with a specific manager in particular. Information about the client will allow you to automatically create a personal and profitable offer for him. Integration will help you collect all the analytical data and find out at which stage of the process the problems are greatest. Based on the results of integration and configuration of various scenarios, the system will be able to automatically create tasks for managers.

In general, the integration of both systems means complete control and automation of all processes. Orderliness, lack of chaos in work, warning of emerging problems - all this makes it possible to devote more time to clients and work with them effectively.

Finally…

Managers of most modern companies are seriously thinking about automating work processes. But the main difficulty in this is the lack of experience, understanding of business processes and the operating features of CRM/ERP themselves. But this does not negate the indisputable fact: systems significantly simplify the internal life of an enterprise when properly implemented and used. Which one is better? It's a matter of choice. For small organizations that sell their own products, CRM is suitable. For huge enterprises seeking total automation, the best option is ERP.

Automation of business processes is a very important task for every company that is focused on constant growth and development. The criteria that determine when it is time to automate certain processes, develop or integrate existing IT solutions depend on the size of the company and the stage of its development. At the first step, most companies implement CRM, then ERP, and when the business grows, they think about BPM. What is behind these acronyms and at what point is it time to implement each solution in your company?

Build relationships with clients

A CRM system is perhaps one of the first IT solutions that a company selling goods or services to clients should implement. If your business is not a shawarma stall near the metro or a manufacturing company with a single customer, CRM will definitely be useful to you. A good sign that you have arrived is the fact that you can no longer keep in your head all the agreements and interactions with current clients.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, so this is not just a database with addresses and phone numbers of clients and transaction amounts. First of all, this is a system that helps you build stable relationships with your users. And this includes not only guiding the client through the sales funnel - from application to transaction - but also the participation of the entire user base in email marketing, trigger mailings, special promotions and, as a result, repeat sales.

Without a CRM system, a business can grow “in breadth” within certain limits (due to the influx of new clients), but it will be quite difficult for it to increase the average bill, profit per client and increase the base of loyal users.

“We have a step-by-step approach to automation: as the number of orders increased, we standardized and transferred business processes to automatic rails using ready-made solutions on the market. First of all, we automated our work with clients as much as possible, so as not to waste time searching for important information and to provide the fastest possible response to our customers’ requests. We have implemented a CRM system to see and constantly analyze the history of relations with the client - calls, orders, correspondence, feedback. If you suddenly need to quickly raise the history of orders, and the responsible manager is sick, these systems make life very easy. If you need to transfer business to a new employee, then this is also not a problem.“, says Evgeniy Nepeyvoda, managing partner of the Kinodoktor company.

Automate processes within the company
During the first months and even years of its life, a company can grow and develop spontaneously: new departments and functional units appear, tasks are split, workload is redistributed between different employees. At this point, confusion can arise: who is responsible for what tasks? When should this work be completed?

If such issues have become relevant for your company, then it’s time to automate processes within the organization. For this they use ERP systems (Enterprise Resource Planning - enterprise resource management). ERP helps to integrate all departments and functions of a company into a single system. As a result, all employees work with a single database, making it easier for them to exchange various types of information and distribute tasks (both within the department and between different departments).

“A signal that it’s time to start automating resources within the company is problems with organizing processes at the department level and between departments: the process may not be followed, slowed down, or be incomprehensible to performers and management.”, says business analyst at DIRECTUM Maxim Kainer.

Dive deeper into business processes

If the main task of ERP is to optimize business processes in a company by reducing material and time costs, then the systems BPM (Business Performance Management) solve higher level problems. We can say that ERP systems are designed to solve tactical issues, while BPM is more about strategy. If ERP is based on resources and the current state of the business, BPM helps to look deeper into business processes. A BPM system is needed when a company has several non-trivial business processes (which can constantly change), and there is a need to speed them up, make them more standardized and transparent.

“Business automation is simply necessary at the stage of active growth of a company. Without it, you will be tied to your company with a thick rope, moreover, it will be difficult to achieve a significant scale of business.
My two companies are now fully automated. This means that without me, both the sales and marketing functions and the management functions of decision-making, including strategic ones, are carried out.
You can implement automation of this level when you already know your business thoroughly. At what point should you do this?
● When the company begins to grow and it becomes impossible to manage it manually
● When there is a need to free up your time or the time of managing managers
● When you began to feel depressed and a complete lack of desire to further develop this business on your own
● When you want to start a new project
● When you need time to come up with a way to explode your current business
In order to correctly implement automation, you need to very clearly understand all business processes, the sequence of actions that need to be automated - that is why you first need to go through the “manual” work path. But it is important not to “get stuck” in the manual labor stage for a long time. The corresponding habits and norms become so ingrained within the business and the team that automation becomes alien and difficult to implement.”, says Galia Berdnikova, founder of the network of photo schools Like and the network of city cafes “Sweater”.

Yours or factory?

At the automation stage, many companies are faced with a dilemma: should they write their own solution or use a “boxed” one?

Most large IT companies, such as Microsoft, SAP and 1C, provide ready-made automation systems for business. There are also many smaller vendors that offer out-of-the-box solutions—thanks to their smaller scale, working with these vendors allows for greater customization of programs to suit your business. However, many companies are trying to make their own solutions.

« When I worked in a small SEO company, the need for a service for assigning tasks to copywriters, monitoring their execution and tracking time arose when the staff size was more than five people. At first we used a self-written solution. But it became difficult to maintain, and it exhausted its functionality after just a year and a half, with a staff of 15 people: three account salespeople, four programmers and a copywriting department. We purchased an annual subscription to a cloud solution that combines CRM, simple workflow and time tracking.
This is a typical scenario: at first managers think “we’ll do everything ourselves,” but then there is an understanding that there are ready-made solutions on the market from vendors who have been developing and improving them for a reason for years.
There are cases when, even with a staff of more than 20 people, companies make do with self-written services, but this requires their own IT specialist who will constantly work on this solution - this is not cheap,” says Maxim Kainer.
But still, ready-made factory programs cannot solve all the customer’s problems - you must always understand that they will have to be adapted to your needs.
“Be prepared for the fact that any “boxed version” of an IT automation product will not be able to take into account all your specifics and will require additional customization to suit your processes. And the system will continue to be refined in the future as your business grows and becomes more complex.”, says Dmitry Archipenko, managing partner of the Revera law firm.

How to choose an automation system that suits your business at this stage? Leave your email and we will send you a list of suitable solutions!

Converter