Sales Force Automation
Sales force automation (SFA) is used loosely throughout the industry and means different things to different people. Basically, SFA includes all of the technologies, techniques, and strategies on which successful sales are built. It's an activity that brings you together with your customers and improves communications and productivity. Customer resource management (CRM) falls under this umbrella.
The goal of SFA is to streamline the entire sales process in order to make businesses more efficient, to improve customer interactions, to increase overall customer satisfaction, to and save time and money.
Customer Relationship Management
Managing sales data and processes can be simplified using today's software solutions. These products automate nearly all of the tasks that salespeople and their support staffs once performed manually. As a category, these products are generally referred to as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
CRM applications started as simple contact-management software that salespeople ran on their PCs. Then vendors began to develop products that automated a larger number of processes and tied together all of the sales data across the organization into one comprehensive source.
Though the features of a CRM solution can vary from product to product, there are a few industry-standard functions:
When looking for a CRM solution, these features aren't necessarily standard, but you may find them helpful:
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) vs. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
CRM and ERP both offer ways to automate processes and run your business more efficiently. However, the systems were originally designed to streamline different functions.
CRM solutions are used to manage contacts, accounts, opportunities, activities, marketing, customer support, and many other sales and service-related processes. CRM calls for knowledge of business needs and customer demands.
ERP is a system of managing operations and business functions, which include product planning, purchasing, inventory, customer service, order tracking, and other back-end business processes. ERP requires knowledge of financial and manufacturing processes.
The lines between CRM and ERP are beginning to blur as ERP vendors incorporate CRM functions into their software and CRM vendors add ERP capabilities to their offerings. Both industries are working to develop all-in-one applications to streamline internal operations and customer activities.
Web-Enabled vs. Web-Based CRM Solutions
Although Web-enabled and Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) applications are similar, there are some fundamental differences.