CRM Solutions Comparison and Selection Presentation. 

Enterprise Resource Planning

As companies and other organizations have become larger, widely distributed geographically and nationally, and extended into multiple product and service lines, integration of these activities provides a way for management to provide effective direction and control. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) concentrates on the efficiency of supply, production, inventory, sales, distribution, financial processes, amid human resources. Such integration rests on a unified database capturing all these operations of the enterprise in almost real time. With the capability to query such a database, management can plan both strategy and tactics based on all the enterprise's resources with almost no lag between information and implementation. As before, its implementation is often susceptible to failure for the reasons given in the image.

Supply Chain Management

Michael E. Porter of the Harvard Business School introduced the concept of value added at each stage of the supply chain. The supply chain begins with finding out exactly what your customers want, procuring materials for production, making the product, distributing it, marketing it, actually selling it, delivering and installing it, and even accepting returned products in a perhaps ironic closing of the chain. Supply chain management (SCM) focuses on developing the most efficient and effective sourcing and procurement processes. Information technology, with its electronic data acquisition, storage, and interchange, its networking, analysis, and reporting integrates and speeds all the transactions involved in the supply chain. Information technology can add considerable value at each stage through timeliness, efficiency, and quality control. As before, its implementation is often susceptible to failure for the reasons given. Implementation of these systems is likewise problematical.

Customer Relationship Management

Customers have never been more pampered than in the information technology age. They can order new products, check on order status, pay bills, contact salespeople and account managers, check on company news and events, or ask for additional help. The basis of these capabilities is the customer relationship management (CRM) system. It focuses on acquiring and retaining profitable customers via marketing, sales, and services. It aggregates and retains data about almost every contact the business has with the customer. The data can then be used for continued product services, upgraded sales, and cross-selling. Amazon.com carries this customer relationship management to new heights by recording past purchases, inferring preferences, and suggesting new purchases.

Conclusions    As new technologies emerge, we can readily see that these enterprise applications will certainly evolve to leverage new platforms and reflect changing business needs.  For example, the virtualization of servers is expected to help reduce the cost of ownership and the emerging cloud computing platform will improve system accessibility and perhaps security among these different enterprise applications.