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Marketing Information Systems and the Sales Order Process
on NRG bars. Marketing sends Health Express a flyer advertising the discounted price, which
is less than what the salesperson just offered in person. Meanwhile, the vice president of Fitter
plays golf with the CEO of Health Express and offers yet another discount. The connection or
relationship with the customer is confused because the customer is receiving inconsistent
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information. Customer relationship management (CRM) software can help companies
streamline their interactions with customers to ensure a consistent message.
An ERP system offers a company an added benefit beyond systems integration:
vast and complete quantities of data available for analysis. By adding other software tools
to its ERP system, a company can extend the capabilities of the system, thus increasing
its value. Many ERP vendors—and non-ERP software companies—provide CRM software.
In 2011, the CRM software market was worth $12 billion and was forecasted to grow to
$25 billion by 2018. SAP was the market leader in CRM software in 2011 with 21 percent
of the CRM market, but SAP has been facing significant challenges from growing interest
in on-demand CRM solutions provided by companies such as Salesforce.com. (With
on-demand CRM, the software and computer equipment reside with the CRM provider;
it is not installed in-house.) In 2006, SAP responded to competition from on-demand
providers with CRM OnDemand. This product was essentially a hosted version of its CRM
software with a few minor changes. In 2011, SAP introduced Sales OnDemand, based on
its BusinessByDesign platform, which is a CRM product with a focus on sales.
With the goal of providing “a single face to the customer,” the basic principle behind
CRM is that any employee in contact with the customer should have access to all
information about the company’s past interactions with the customer. In a traditional sales
organization, information might only be available to one individual, who might not share it
with the organization. If that individual leaves the company, the information is lost.

Core CRM Activities
In general, CRM software supports the following activities and tools:
• One-to-one marketing—Once a customer is categorized, for example, based
on the products they buy and the volume in which they buy those products,
the company can tailor products, promotions, and pricing accordingly.
Customers can be offered products related to what they are now buying
(cross-selling), or the company could choose to promote higher-margin
products in the same lines (up-selling) to those customers.
• Sales force automation (SFA)—Using the CRM software, occurrences of
customer contacts are logged in the company’s database. The SFA feature
of CRM software can automatically route certain customers who contact the
company to a particular sales representative. Companies can also use SFA
tools to forecast customer needs, based on the customer’s history and
transactions, and to alert sales representatives accordingly. Sometimes this
software is called “lead management software” because a transaction can be
tracked from the initial lead to post-sale follow-up.
• Sales campaign management—This software feature lets a company
organize a marketing campaign and compile its results automatically.
• Marketing encyclopedias—This feature serves as a database of promotional
literature about products. The material can be routed to sales representatives
or customers as needed.

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