Just like we have hardware and software in computers or hard skills and soft skills for people, similarly we have heard systems and soft systems.

For humans maths is a hard skill, and communication is a soft skill. Similarly for a business, an ERP / CRM is a hard system while company culture is a soft system.

As you can see both are very important. In most cases the soft skills are much more important than the hard ones.

I'm not sure who came up with this distinction for systems; but it's a very important one to know.

Important because a lot of us think that once you put in an ERP things will automatically workout in your business. After all, a lot of effort goes into getting the tech & numbers right!

But, if you don't pay equal attention to soft systems like policies, alignment of people, etc. it will just not work.

So, always make sure you integrate both closely for systems to work.