Customer Relationship Management is typically defined as Contact Management or Sales Force Automation. We define CRM a bit differently - as the set of best practices an organization employs to develop profitable interactions with customers and partners. Ultimately customers don't care if you can run a forecast report, but they do care if you know who they are when they call.

The CRM market has converged into two segments:

• Feature Rich Products - Several products in the market have focused on providing a wide array of functionality and widely-accepted best practices. These solutions are typically most appropriate for organizations who want to streamline customer management or benefit from solutions that have worked for other organizations. We liken this approach to building a home from a specification that allows some configuration within a predefined structure or framework. Feature Rich products are best for organizations looking for highly functional tools that leverage the best practices and experience that the vendors are able to build into the application.
  
  
• Foundation Architecture Products - Other products on the market provide a more flexible foundation architecture that can be molded to support an organization's specific business process or best practices. For example, the application may provide the basics - contact management, sales opportunities, support/service cases, marketing automation - but allow a great degree of configuration and customization to the platform to support specific business processes. We liken this approach to building a custom home with an experienced builder who may use a plan as a guideline, but offers a wide array of options. Foundation Architecture products are best for organizations with complex business processes, or with the need to integrate with legacy applications.

Because CRM is ultimately about what makes your business succeed, it is important to define your business processes, best practices, and organizational needs before selecting a product. Just about all CRM solutions available provide 360° views of customer data. Some have better support for sales and marketing, and still others for service and support. It is important to determine if your organization will benefit most from a feature rich or foundation architecture solution before selecting a final solution.