When a company has reached a certain number of employees, managers quickly lose track of the large amount of data that has accumulated over time. Processes are becoming more complex and take more time. The initial dynamic of one’s own company is no longer as fast as it was before.

For this purpose there is the possibility to use so-called ERP and CRM systems. In the following, both types should be explained in a meaningful way. In general, such systems are technology or software that can map processes and data and enable faster processing of processes with the help of automatisms.

ERP systems

An Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) is an IT-supported system made up of software solutions , that supports the management in maintaining an overview of business processes. It can represent, optimize, support and document such business processes in a meaningful way. The aim is to reduce the throughput times of processes and facilitate the organization of work processes in the company. Especially in growing companies, not all processes can be monitored with the help of lists. There are also more repetitions of processes, so that optimization is worthwhile in the short and long term.

in the ERP system is made up of various software modules, such as materials management, financial accounting, human resources or project management. The basis is a shared database that evaluates the data in various ways. The advantage is that the most important modules can be purchased and set up in the first step. In this way, a company can save costs and carry out the ERP system project step by step.

According to Survey on Statista Around 77% of companies with less than 250 employees already use an ERP system and provide significant advantages in terms of speed and efficiency in their own processes.

CRM systems

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a system that enables a company to systematically display relationships with existing and potential customers. Furthermore, interactions can be shown and thus contacts and behavior of customers can be traced.

A CRM system is important as it enables companies to intensify relationships with customers, partners and suppliers and to benefit from them. Especially with a large number of customers and partners, it is hardly possible to keep track of them with the help of lists or your own brain. The CRM helps and supports in dealing with customers and partners. The CRM offers a detailed overview of customers and their activities. The presentation takes place, for example, in the form of a dashboard or individually adaptable lists.

The benefits are better sales forecasts, increased productivity, and more loyal customers. According to Survey on Statista Benefits of over 5000 medium-sized companies under 250 surveyed already employ over 60% of such CRM systems and are planning to constantly expand their use.

Conclusion: find the right system

ERP and CRM systems can help companies to design processes better and more efficiently. A sticking point is the selection and introduction of Software solutions for medium-sized companies . Trustworthy partners can help here. The selection is often complex and ranges from cloud to on-premise (self-managed) systems to commercial and open source systems. It’s hard to find the right system. But the effort can be worthwhile and with the help of a trustworthy service provider, the effort and risk can be reduced many times over. Benefit from more flexibility, more speed, more innovative strength, more competitiveness.

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Author

I blog about the influence of digitalization on our working world. For this purpose, I provide content from science in a practical way and show helpful tips from my everyday professional life. I am an executive in an SME and I wrote my doctoral thesis at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg at the Chair of IT Management.

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