When modernising your legacy business systems, the first two systems you will probably consider are an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) and a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). Both have long proven their value as powerful tools for operating a business. But when it comes down to an ERP vs CRM, which is best for your business?

To begin with, it’s important to understand what the difference is between these two systems. The short answer is that an ERP connects a business’ financial and operational systems within a central database and is mostly used by the financial and operations teams. On the other hand, a CRM is designed to help manage how customers interact with a business and is most often used by sales and customer service teams.

In this article, we explore the features and benefits of an ERP vs CRM, including the common characteristics of each system and when your business should invest in them.

The key features and benefits of an ERP

An ERP is a comprehensive business system that uses automation to improve the efficiency, productivity and profitability of your business processes. The system handles all back-end processes and internal information such as purchases, sales, manufacturing, human resources, services, inventory, shipping and accounting. Traditionally, ERPs have been on-premises systems, but today they are usually based in the cloud.

An ERP works by collecting and storing data within the ERP database to create a real-time, enterprise-wide snapshot of the business, with drill down options to enable more granular views. This architecture improves the flow of information across your organisation, resulting in a range of benefits including:

  • Reduced operational costs 
  • Reliable, real-time information and data visibility
  • Improved reporting and planning capabilities
  • Flexible modularity and scalability 
  • Efficiency and consistency in workflows and processes
  • Enhanced data security and quality
  • Expanded collaboration opportunities, particularly for hybrid work models 
  • Standardised business processes
  • Smoother supply chain management
  • Better regulatory compliance

In addition, a good cloud ERP should include the following functionalities:

  • Customisability – the ability to tailor your system to the needs of your organisation and activities
  • Usability – an easy-to-use interface, without the need for in-depth technical know-how
  • Accessible data - useful, digestible information conveyed through reports and dashboards 
  • Automated processes and workflows - for example, automatic generation of reports, invoices and payment runs

The key features and benefits of a CRM

A CRM handles an organisation’s sales, marketing and customer service information, helping teams to better manage, track and organise their relationships with customers, at scale. Customer-facing teams can record and track customer interactions and sales, as well as oversee pipeline management, prospecting and marketing efforts, empowering them with the data to deliver more nuanced customer experiences. 

A CRM works by tracking all interactions and communication with current and potential customers as they navigate a business’s many channels -  websites, social media, and email. It can also guide a customer through a sales or buying funnel and, for example, trigger an alert should an opportunity require additional nurturing or follow-up. When properly deployed, a CRM becomes a centralised database across sales and customer services that allows a business to:

  • Easily manage all communication and interactions with prospects
  • Build customer relationships to reduce customer churn
  • Develop effective cross-selling and upselling strategies
  • Create highly targeted, personalised and relevant email campaigns 
  • Better understand customer needs and aspirations
  • Automate data entry
  • Organise and segment customers and data
  • Create sales reports
  • Automate forecasting for your sales performance
  • Scale sales processes 
  • Make administrative tasks efficient

In addition to providing a seamless flow of information across the entire customer lifecycle, a good cloud CRM should include the following functionalities:

  • Sales force automation for automated sales workflows 
  • Customer service management that makes it easy for users to track all communications and nurture relationships
  • Advanced functionality to allow users to generate quotes, manage orders and commissions, 
  • Support sales and eCommerce teams by providing sales forecasting and integrated eCommerce capabilities

So which is best for your business – ERP vs CRM?

As you can see, each business system on its own provides valuable functionality to support growing businesses. In fact, eventually, you will need both systems to keep growing. So for most organisations, it isn’t a question of an ERP vs CRM, but how can they get all this functionality in one integrated suite? After all, unified business systems make managing data easier, eliminate the need for dual data entry and prevent users from having to jump from one system to another throughout their workday.

Fortunately, you can have a fully-integrated ERP/CRM cloud solution with the NetSuite platform. NetSuite ERP natively integrates with NetSuite CRM to deliver a complete software solution that offers all the functionality listed above and more. Across both systems, information is updated in real-time so there is a seamless flow of data from one to the other. In addition, software licencing costs are reduced when you remove stand-alone applications from your tech mix.

So whether you deploy both systems at once or start with NetSuite ERP and implement NetSuite CRM further down the track (or vice versa), you can be sure that you’re getting an integrated, world-class platform to manage all of your business needs.

More than just NetSuite experts

At Annexa, we provide industry-leading solutions customised to the NetSuite platform, including supply chain management. With our in-house integrations, extensions, partnerships and full-service capabilities, we deliver end-to-end solutions for our customers to help them grow and expand their business potential. Contact us today to speak to an expert to learn whether we are the right NetSuite implementation partner for you.

Annexa is a leading NetSuite partner with extensive experience designing and implementing comprehensive and customised business systems, including payroll solutions, financial management, warehouse management and ecommerce solutions.