ERP AND SALES AND

MARKETING Submitted
Mahuri Kesharwani
Poorva Nagi
Sagar Parmar
MODULE
ERP (Enterprise resource planning)
WHAT IS ERP?
ERP systems are the software tools used to manage enterprise data. ERP systems help
organizations deal with the supply chain, receiving, inventory management, customer order
management, production planning, shipping, accounting, human resource management, and
other business functions (Somers and Nelson, 2003).

ERP Software for Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing data can be very powerful when integrated with ERP software. In today’s
marketplace, it is imperative that sales information be quickly and accurately input on a
phone call or out in the field.

The entry point for all Customer Relationship Management (CRM Software) products is
activity, from the quote-to-order sales funnel and tracking leads, to prospects and through to
customers. Additionally, companies who can quickly configure accurate quotes and
estimates, check inventory availability and give customers reliable availability have a
competitive advantage.

Marketing departments typically use applications outside of traditional ERP transactions to

manage campaigns, oversee lists and identify new market segments. Leveraging one system
has a tremendous impact on data analysis and information flow.

Benefits of ERP Software for Sales and Marketing

End-to-end integration from lead generation and opportunity management through to
production and delivery

Ability to set and measure key performance indicators (KPIs) related to call/meeting activities,
close ratios, etc.

Ability to optimize Sales and Operational Planning (S&OP) by incorporating realistic sales
forecasting data

ERP Software for Sales and Marketing Vendor Qualities

Product research and development has significantly increased in the sales and marketing
software space. Vendors now need to have software applications that can integrate
seamlessly with other systems, along with the ability to mine data from multiple systems.

Sales and marketing software applications must provide the user with an easy, intuitive
experience to see end-user adoption. Dashboards and homepages are where most time is
spent and systems need to be completely mobile.

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ERP Software for Sales and Marketing Top Vendors

SALES AND MARKETING MODULES IN ERP SYSTEMS

Traditionally, sales and marketing software supports operational and management control processes,
including:-

Contact management,

Sales management,

Sales analysis/ forecasting.

The difference between Sales and Marketing modules within an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
system and traditional sales and marketing software is that ERP systems provide integrated marketing
support systems, including contact files, order entry files, and sales history files.

In addition, ERP systems provide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, which provides
information to salespeople about the previous experiences of customers, including purchases,
product preferences, and payment history. With an ERP module, a customer places an order, and a
sales order is recorded (see Figure 3).The system schedules shipping and works backward from the
shipping date to reserve the materials, to order parts from suppliers, and to schedule manufacturing.
The module checks the customer’s credit limit, updates sales forecasts, and creates a bill of materials.
The salesperson’s commission is updated. Product costs and profitability are calculated. Finally,
accounting data is updated, including balance sheets, accounts payable, ledgers, and other financial
information.

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SALES AND MARKETING PROCESSES
Sales and marketing processes include operational-level and management control
processes.Operational processes include daily activities, such as prospecting, contact
management, telemarketing, and direct mail. Sales representatives need to create and
maintain lists of prospects by location, by product category, and by sales potential and need
to create and maintain a contact management system, which tracks customer preferences,
sales history data, and the history of sales calls. When sales are done via telemarketing,
telemarketing databases are used for contacts and follow-ups. Direct mail processes create
and maintain mailing lists, some of which are designed for target markets. Traditionally, sales
and marketing operational functions are supported by sales order processing systems, which
capture order data, and point-of-sale (POS) systems, which capture data at the point of sale.
These systems are linked to inventory management systems, which update inventory levels
for stock items based upon sales data.

MANAGEMENT CONTROL PROCESSES IN SALES AND MARKETING

Management control activities in sales and marketing are designed to allocate sales and
marketing resources in order to achieve maximum revenues. One of the most important areas
is sales management.

SALES MANAGEMENT PROCESSES Sales managers are responsible for creating territories and
for allocating sales people’s time to generate maximum revenue and service. The decisions
which sales managers need to make include the following:

• How should territories be shaped?

• How can we allocate salesperson time to call on the highest potential Account?

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• Which customers are most profitable?

• Which products are most profitable?

The information that sales managers use to make decisions is largely based upon an analysis
of past sales. Summary reports, comparative analysis reports, and exception reports are all
useful tools in analysing sales trends and determining how to best allocate resources.
Examples include the following:

• Comparison of sales, product revenues, customer revenues, and territory revenues against
benchmarks of success

Comparison of the productivity of each salesperson to the average for the department

• Listing of the most profitable products in each territory

• Listing of the products that represent the highest percentage of sales for each salesperson
• Listing of the customers that represent the highest percentage of sales for each
SalesManagementsoftwareisusedbysalesmanagerstoassesstheproductivityof the sales force
and the success of products, by sales person, by territory, and by customer type.

Specifically, sales management software achieves these and other objectives:

• To identify weak products in a territory

• To compare salesperson performance by product type and customer type

SALES FORECASTING PROCESSES

Sales forecasting is important to determine the potential needs of customers in various
market segments. Sales forecasting activities include segmenting the market into target
groups of potential customers and planning products/services to meet the customers’ needs.
Sales forecasts can be developed for overall sales, for sales by territory, for sales by each
product or service, for sales for new products/services, and for sales by sales representative.
Sales forecasts use information on past sales history as well as information about
competition, customer demand, and demographic trends.

ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION

Another important marketing process, which requires decisions about how to allocate
resources, is advertising and promotion. The major questions are the following:

• Which advertising media and promotional channels should I use?

• Which advertising channels and media are most effective in addressing specific market
targets?

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PRODUCT PRICING SYSTEMS
What prices should I establish for products? This is a key question to be addressed as part of
marketing management. To make pricing decisions, the marketing manager should know the
expected product demand, the desired profit margin, the product production costs, and the
competing products. Pricing depends upon pricing strategy. Pricing models are built from data
from various forces that influence pricing, including consumer price indices, expected
consumer disposable income, volume of products produced, labor costs, and raw materials
costs.

Subsystem
Pre-sales
It tracks customer contacts also provides the customer with a price quote.

Sales order processing

Uses the price quote to record items to be purchased; determines the sales price; records
order quantities; configures quantity discounts; checks customer credit.

Inventory sourcing
Checks the inventory database to see if items can be delivered on time; updates the
production planning database to avoid any shortfalls.

Delivery
Releases documents to the warehouse: items are picked; orders are packed and shipped

Billing
Uses sales order data to create an invoice; updates accounting records; increases (debits)
accounts receivable

Payments
Accepts payment; decreases the customer’s accounts receivable balance with the amount of
payment

The purpose of the Sales and Marketing module within ERP is to identify sales prospects, to
process sales orders, to manage inventory, to handle deliveries, to provide billing, and to
accept and process payments. As with other ERP modules, the Sales and Marketing module
provides the benefits of standard codes, a common database, standard documents, an audit
trail, and data integration. For example, a standard document number follows an order
throughout its life cycle, including partial shipments, partial payments, and returns. This
document flow prevents errors and inaccuracies and keeps accounting data relevant.

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Case Study
CASE: ATLANTIC MANUFACTURING

Atlantic Manufacturing is a manufacturer of custom configured small motors that go into jet
skis, snowmobiles, and other recreational vehicles. Its customers represent major consumer
manufacturing companies. In June 2004, it reported these problems in order acquisition,
operations, distribution, and accounting.

SALES AND DISTRIBUTION

✓ Salespersons have to call the home office for quotations for many products because of
many possible configurations.

✓ Salespeople are making quotas, but profitability is declining because the standard cost
system is not providing accurate information with respect to costs.

✓ Customers are asking for reduced lead times, which could be achieved if Atlantic’s
engineers worked more closely with their suppliers.
CREDIT

✓ Recently, customers were put on “credit hold” when they were not able to pay on a timely
basis. However, when the credit manager was out of town for several weeks, an order went
through to this customer by mistake. Nothing could be collected on this account because the
customer could not pay.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND REPAIR

✓ Atlantic has a stand-alone system to take care of field service. When service technicians
repair equipment in the field, they do not always bill the cus-tomer for the correct amount

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since the system does not have information indicating which replacement parts
are covered by the warranty.

✓ Since the field service system is a stand-alone system and does not integrate
with other systems within the company, quality control people mainly use
anecdotal evidence to identify potential problems.

Vendor: VK Infotech
VK Infotech is a fast-growing company, dedicated to providing business clients and individuals
with Consulting Services and Complete Software & IT Solutions. We specialize in
providing Quality & Cost-Effective Software, Web Applications & Web Site Development
services to our clients around the globe.
VK Infotech offer a wide variety of web development services. From basic small business
homepages to enterprise Business-2-Business e-commerce sites. We are dedicated to
providing professional, tailored services to meet your online needs.

ERP - Sales and marketing - CRM

Any company would want to have a good and fighting sales and marketing force to compete
in the market.

An efficient sales and marketing module of an ERP software will help the company to
achieve the above objective.

ERP sales and marketing module will help a company stay competitive and streamline their
sales and marketing activities of both domestic and export sales.

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Activities in sales and marketing
Sales and Marketing module provides functionalities which begin from contacting customers
which are referred to as pre sales activities, allows tracking of each customer orders right
from placing an order to dispatch of material for that particular order, raising sales invoices
and receiving payments from customer. Below are the list of core functionalities of ERP
sales and Marketing module.

 Sales order
 Order scheduling
 Shipping with delivery note
 Tracking sales invoices
 Sales returns

Additionally, the following activities can be recorded with the ERP sales and marketing
module.

 Automating the sales force activities such as visits to customers and tracking their
expenses.
 Target setting for marketing personnel.
 Business partners and franchises are common in today's businesses. Marketing
personnel need to work closely with business partners to promote their business.
Recording of these activities.

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  Recording of payments received from customers after dispatches are made. An ERP
sales and marketing module allows marketing executives to contact customers and
follow-up each and every sales invoice and receive payments for invoices.
 Track lost orders and identify the reasons for loosing those orders.
 Allow the preparation of comprehensive reports of the sales and marketing activities
of the company such as track sales trends over different periods, drill down for the
consolidated data and allow for sales forecast.

Stock updates and Reports in sales module

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Exports in sales module
The stock updates are reflected in the stock ledger and the stock registers. General ledger
account updates are reflected in the balance sheet, P / L statement and general ledger.

Core features of ERP sales modules

 We all know that Customers and Sales play an important role in the business to
grow. Sales Orders are the source of cash flows.
 Different businesses will have different sales requirements. While choosing an ERP
software one should look for the following core features in Sales modules.
 Maintaining Customer Profile in a centralized database
 Recording Customer details such as Name, Shipping address, Profile details and
Credit terms etc.
 The system should allow to categorize customers based on any criteria for example,
product wise, and location wise and outstanding criteria.

Creation of Sales order

Sales order is raised when the sales department receives a specific order from the customer.
This document is used to inform all concerned departments such as inventory and
manufacturing of the orders which should be fulfilled in future. Using this data,
managements can plan purchases and prepare the manufacturing schedules.

There are various transactions which can be triggered from Sales Orders like:

 Delivery Note

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  Sales Invoice
 Material Request
 Production Order

Data recorded in a Sales Order

Data recorded in the sales business process:

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Order no
A unique number assigned to each order.

Order Date
The date on which an order is created.

Customer Name
The customer to whom this particular order has to be delivered to.

Shipping Address
The address to which the consignment has to be shipped.

Due Date
The date on or before, the order has to be completed.

Item Name, Quantity, Rate, Value

These are the details of the products which have to be delivered to the customer. ERP
system populates the item prices automatically. If not entered, it will allow to enter the item
rate manually.

Discount
An amount which is deducted from the order value. This amount is usually a percentage of
the order value or could be a fixed amount.

Freight
The amount charged for shipping the products to the customer.

Tax
The amount to be paid to the authorities by the organization, which is collected from the
customer.

Credit limit
When Sales orders are delivered, customers will not pay the amount immediately.
Companies will set the credit limit for customers depending on their orders and the trust
level they have. Every time a new order is delivered, the system will check whether
customer credit limit is crossed. So, shipments can be held till the expected payments are
done.

Features of sales module

Multiple dispatches against single Sales Order

As shown above, a typical sales order contains multiple products and their sales amounts. Sometimes
these products should be shipped on different delivery dates and in varying quantities. Delivery on a
particular date or dates is an important requirement for some customers and they would want

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products to be delivered on those dates. Some orders with multiple products should be delivered
together. Some customers prefer to deliver individual products on different dates. The ERP system
should support this multiple dispatches against single Sales Order. In the Sales Order data entry
screen, in the customer field, customer lookup displays customer names to select a customer name.
System also provides items look up to select items. As soon as items are selected, automatic item price
and discount calculation is calculated and displayed.

As shown in the above pic, the Sales Order header contains detailed information about a Customer
including the Sales Representative assigned to the Customer, the Customer's Purchase Order Number,
location, Billing Address, Shipping Address, and more.

Sometimes there is a need for customized Item Processing

The Sales module also enables you to take orders for special items. These orders can be for
one-time and on custom specifications. Billing for these order are done based on labor cost
for that order and materials cost.

Sales forecast

Sales forecasts are expected future sales or orders by customer. Many ERP systems include
a variety of tools to generate forecasts from past sales patterns. These forecasts are useful
to predict future orders and correspondingly raw materials procumbent schedules and

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production planning.

Pending orders

ERP system can generate report on pending orders based on today, this week, current
month and next month time periods.

Sales reports on a geographic location

ERP system can generate sales reports on a geographic location and based on sales persons.
Usually, each sales person will be attached to a territory within the system and he will be
responsible for orders, bookings, and backorders in that geographical area. Sometimes
customers make advance payments to book orders. The system accommodates this advance
amount and adjusts by raising a sales voucher automatically.

2. Vendor: Microsoft Dynamics AX | Sales &

Marketing

Sales and Marketing

The Sales and Marketing module within Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system delivers powerful
integrated sales and marketing management capabilities to increase sales and to help build
and strengthen customer relationships. Improve customer relationships with a real-time view
of customer data — track phone logs, correspondence, and automatically generated activities
to identify customer needs. Make crucial sales and marketing decisions with confidence.

The Sales and Marketing module fosters increased sales by continuously collecting
information on customer purchasing patterns helping to identify and target cross-selling and
up-selling opportunities. Increase marketing effectiveness by identifying and qualifying new
prospects. Simplify campaign planning and execution. Manage statistical feedback and
measure marketing campaign success by leveraging rich ERP data. Monitor return on
investment (ROI) in real-time by linking projects with campaigns.

Utilize the Sales and Marketing solution to manage sales performance of personnel. Monitor
individual sales personnel, sales teams, and the entire sales department. Associate revenue
and expenses with every transaction at any level of detail. Gain the ability to establish person-
to-person contact with customers, create sales quotes, and follow up on marketing initiatives.

The Sales and Marketing module within Microsoft Dynamics AX enterprise resource planning
solution consists of four components that fully integrate with the entire ERP system:

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 Sales Force Automation

 Manage all business relationships including customers, personnel, vendors, partners, leads,
members, subscribers, etc.

 Access a real-time overview of all financial and logistical information.

 Analyze actual sales against budgets.

 Allow access to customer information to entire sales force with individualized permissions.

 Evaluate customer activity against customer profitability.

 Forecast and plan future revenue.

 Communicate with groups through multiple modes.

Sales Management

 Monitor and manage personnel performance and activities.

 Generate sales reports and graphs.

 Analyze all sales related activities.

 Measure sales revenue against target sales.

 Perform opportunity management and pipeline analysis.

 Budget future activities based on real-time data.

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 Marketing Automation

 Create marketing campaigns for any group utilizing existing data in Microsoft Dynamics AX
ERP system.

 Organize campaign administration and distribution.

 Link campaigns, surveys, projects, and responses.

 Automatically sync follow-up marketing activities with Microsoft Outlook.

 Monitor ROI by linking campaigns to projects.

 Publicize campaigns via email, text, fax, call lists, and the Internet.

Telemarketing

 Map out daily activities.

 Generate call lists, automate phone calls, and log call details.

 Use the questionnaire functionality to create call scripts.

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References
 VK Infotech. https://www.vkinfotech.com/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2019.

ERP - Sales and Marketing - CRM. https://vkinfotek.com/erp/erp-sales-crm.html

Accessed 16 Oct. 2019.

 Gür, Remzi. [Mary Sumner.] Enterprise Resource Planning(b-

Ok.Org). www.academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/35057348/_Mary_S

umner._Enterprise_resource_planning_b-ok.org_. Accessed 16 Oct. 2019.

 Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP | Sales & Marketing

Overview. https://www.top10erp.org/microsoft-dynamics-ax-sales-and-order-

management-sales-and-marketing-modules-525. Accessed 16 Oct. 2019.

 ‘ERP Software for Sales and Marketing’. Ultra

Consultants, https://ultraconsultants.com/software-vendors/sales-and-

marketing/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2019.