Choosing your management software: key functions
What is an erp? The boundary between the different ranges of management software is not clearly defined, and remains an eternal expert debate.
This simplified analysis, which cannot claim to be exhaustive, will have the merit of shedding light on the key functionalities of management software packages.
Features of a sales management application
Sales management software can be used to manage three vital business functions:
- management of the sales cycle: from drawing up quotations or sales proposals to invoicing customers, via order tracking and delivery.
- Purchasing process management: for managing replenishments and supplier orders.
- stock management: i.e. the movement of goods, as well as inventory and stock valuation functions.
In more general terms, sales management software can be seen as being more concerned with sales processing, with purchasing and stock management seen primarily as auxiliary elements for optimising these processes.
Functionalities of CRM software
The role of a Customer Relationship Management tool - or CRM software - is to gather and then process information relating to the company's customers with a view to optimising the company's sales performance.
The three main components of a CRM tool are :
- Sales Force Automation (SFA), which brings together all the tools for improving sales productivity. Activity tracking (events, tasks and diaries), customer and prospect management, and sales recording and tracking.
- Marketing campaign management (Enterprise Marketing Automation or EMA), which provides the functionality needed to communicate with customers.
- support management (Client Service Support), which brings together the tools needed to improve after-sales service and customer support.
Ultimately, GRC/CRM focuses particularly on increasing sales. Support is identified as a means of building customer loyalty and improving customer knowledge, while marketing is intended to feed the databases ultimately used by the sales force.
ERP software features
Enterprise Resources Planning, or ERP, is an integrated software package designed to bring together the company's main functions and process them in a single database, thereby facilitating and accelerating the flow of data between ERP components.
The basic functions of an ERP are purchasing and sales management, followed by inventory and logistics management, and finally accounting, finance and human resources management.
ERP therefore handles the entire sales process, from quotation to invoice. However, we will see that these functions can also be managed by entities other than the ERP itself.
Each type of software has its own functional scope, and the boundary between ERP, Sales Management and CRM is not obvious. The terms are often confused, sometimes even by professionals.
Read other articles by the same author:
- How to produce a quality inventory?
- Invoice tracking: how to follow up a customer
- E-commerce accounting
Article translated from French