Active Directory &/or Configuration Management

Our site is going to have to comply with NERC CIP cyber security standards. I’m not really an IT guy, more of an engineer.

I am wondering what the relationship is between enterprise configuration managment software (such as Configuresofts ECM: http://www.configuresoft.com/) and Active Directory running on a domain.

To me, it seems like this type of software may be redundant if you are using group policies in a domain. Am I write? What can ECM do that active directory cannot? Is a domain required for configuration management? Is ECM a replace for or a suppliment to Active Directory?

Thanks peeps of the web.