ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.
Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organization into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various system modules.
ERP applications typically consist of modules such as Production, Inventory Control, Procurement, Sales, Human Resources, Finance, and Accounting.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.
CRM is a broad term that covers concepts used by companies to manage their relationships with customers, including the capture, storage and analysis of customer information.
Both ERP and CRM systems support organizations to better manage their activities, to get increased revenue and profit, sustaining their growth, but from totally different perspectives.
In the ERP case we talk about two important objectives: control and optimization of resources (inventory, earnings etc.) and organizations processes automation (invoicing, purchasing, selling, inventory), the focus being on financial indicators like: profitability, cash flow, inventory, etc. The CRM systems are aimed to improve the activity more from the qualitative point of view having as main objectives the customers, partners, employee’s satisfaction and the continuous improvement of the organization.
Finally all ERP/CRM systems manage the organization processes and help organization to increase profit, and from the functionality point of view all provide a set of basic functionality, being more or less specialized on different domains (verticals).