ERP Functions: Marketing 2

In the last blog Here we have got know that driving force for any company starts with Sales/Marketing along with we also came to know two major steps of process flow in Sales/Marketing. Enquiry and Feasibility Study.

In the currently blog I continue discussing the next steps of Marketing  i.e. sending Quotation to the customer. It is not mandatory to send quotations to all the enquiries. The decision of regretting Quotation or accepting is taken after feasibility study. Some of the customers also mentions Validity Period for an Enquiry in which case quotation has to be reached before the Validity Period is over, otherwise the quotation will not be accepted by the customer as they might have accepted other quotations from different supplier by that time. All these factors are taken into consideration before sending quotation.

Major components of quotation are

Quantity : Of Product.

Rate: Per unit of product.

Discount: On rate, described either in percentage or flat value.

Packaging Charges: Per unit of product, described either in percentage or flat value.

Terms and Conditions: Includes Payment Terms, Delivery Terms, Conditions on document to be submitted like test certificate, Purchase Order etc. Conditions on sampling approval before actual production etc.

         Taxes: Pertaining to the product and region of the customer. 

Along with these information acceptance of delivery schedule mentioned in the enquiry will also be part of quotation. In many industries to increase the credibility and transparency break up of cost calculation of the product/service is also present in the quotation. 

The quotation, thus, is the document which the customer refers to decide his purchase from the company. So, the data collected from feasibility study must be presented with utmost care and professionalism

However customer may not be satisfied with the quotation so there may be negotiations. This negotiations usually starts from company Marketing team's end.This leads to revisions and amendments in the quotation based on the negotiations. In certain cases customer may send revised enquiry also. In such cases, the process would restart. Once the negotiating parties reach an agreement, the final quotation is sent to the customer.

Quotation, then will be accepted by the customer. The purchase department of the customer sends Purchase Order to the company. The Purchase Order will have same details as in the final accepted quotation. There may be some minor changes and minor additional terms added by the customer. However major components like quantity, rate, payment and delivery terms will remain same. The Purchase Order from customer is usually received by marketing team of the company. This Customer Purchase Order(PO) is registered as Sales Order. Marketing department then verifies details of Customer PO and the delivery schedules accepts the same. Acceptance is intimated to the customer. Both these documents' copies are sent to mainly 3 departments. In some industries all the orders are consolidated and monthly despatch plan is circulated to the corresponding departments.

1. Planning :- To plan the material and production in accordance with delivery schedule in the PO (Despatch Plan).
2. Sales/Despatch :- To verify the correctness of delivery terms and to Despatch as per delivery schedule in the PO (Despatch Plan)
3. Finance :- To verify the correctness of payment terms and to receive the payment as per those terms.

In some cases customer may also request despatch plan and production plan. All negotiations on production, despatch, payments with customer is mainly done through marketing department. Therefore marketing department plays a very major role in any industry.

“If Customer is God then Marketing is Priest.” So, every company has to maintain a happy and satisfied marketing team to have continuous growth


This completes brief about Marketing operations. Further we will go into planning and production in coming weeks... Keep looking this space...

ERP Functions: Marketing 1

In the last post we understood that ERP is a management tool which aids to manage the firm professionally by achieving business standard in all the functions of the organization.

There are common business functions by which an organization is run. Here is the link on brief about each one of them and flow of functionality. In this blog I will try to explain functionality of each of them.

All the business are driven by Sales of the company. Its the point where revenue is generated. So how does Sales Department function?

For any sale to happen a customer is required. With the high competition in the current Global environment just producing best products or providing best services will not always grows the sales of the company. So there is sub function called Marketing which does the work of reaching the potential buyer and converting them as customer or client.

There is a procedure of Marketing which will be explained here. Briefly it starts with Campaign, through this Leads are identified. Then Leads are followed up to get the deal/Enquiry. Now I will be explaining the flow of information and decisions in the marketing department.

Potential Customer may either search for a supplier for a requirement of him or Marketing team may get through such customers. Then the first document received from customer is Enquiry. Some of the organizations also calls it as RFQ (Request for Quotation) This document usually contains product specifications, drawings and other details about the product. Along with these it also contains delivery requirement of the customer. Customer will also specify terms and conditions on payment, delivery etc. Overall this document will provide detail information on the needs of the customer.

After receiving of Enquiry from a customer a Feasibility Study is done within the organization.  Design & Engineering, Quality, Production,Purchase, Marketing, Finance departments are have to play the key role in the study. Design & Engineering department will provide the raw material specification, a projection of production flow with machine and man power requirements. This is done with coordination of Production and Quality departments. Purchase department will provide the estimated price of the raw material and any other consumable and machinaries required for the production. Along with this Purchase department also ensures the avaialbility of materials and machinaries (if any) for production to achieve the delivery of products as per customer required date.  Marketing department will collect all these data. Then finally Finance department estimates the cost of raw material, cost of the production, cost of transportation and other miscellaneous costs. This estimation of cost is very much essential. Then additional profit margin is added and price of the product is decided. This price is the deciding factor of getting profit to the company. If any component of cost is missed or miss calculated then company may produce and sell high number of products but profit will not be increased.Then the terms and conditions of customer is reviewed by Marketing, Sales, Finance department. With these information Marketing department starts preparing quotation to send to customer.

I will explain the components of Quotation and further flow of information in next blog. Keep watching...

Beginning Note

Finally I have successfully transformed my ideas of blogging about ERP into reality. I have been working as ERP Consultant for more than 4 years and visited industries of different range. Ofcourse this is not resume note of me. I am a Social entrepreneur.

Over the years of my experience in ERP I have felt that ERP is not just about softwares and computers. It is to streamline business processes in standard way so the overall monitoring and growth of Industry is possible. Softwares and computers are only for fast computation and providing data which are essential in business decision making process.I also felt that ERP is essential tool for every industry be it is SME, Medium scale or Large Enterprises.


Even though in recent years ERP softwares for SMEs and MSIs have evolved those were not able to penetrate every industrial hub of our nation. One of the major reasons is that lack of knowledge about ERP in SMEs and MSIs. Many do not know the purpose and best utilization of ERP. Still ERP softwares are compared with accounting packages like Tally. The potential of a best ERP solution is yet to be known by many industries.

This blog tries to educate such people and students of ERP and business sector. Along with this my friend Sachi is also writing blogs to educate people on management in simple terms www.somanagement.blogspot.com


We hope our efforts brings the positive changes in the industries and helps them to grow higher. With that I end my beginning note...Keep looking this are for Study Of Enterprise Resource Planning SoERP!!