Think big, but start small, and learn through doing.

As the pace of business accelerates, companies are changing more rapidly than ever. The Internet, global competition, corporate mergers, new products, new locations, new employees all make it difficult to keep valuable customer relationships flourishing. Suddenly, companies are finding themselves working with customers that may be geographically remote as well as technologically sophisticated. CRM can help a business to prosper in such a complex environment.

The business community now operates in a new dimension of competition: namely, finding specific products and services for customers instead of finding customers for proffered products and services. This market paradigm demands that a company be thoroughly familiar with its customers and that it focuses on their needs. It's the best way a company can deploy its resources to achieve a positive outcome for everyone. CRM can help. CRM is ALL about the customer, and advances in technology have enabled many companies to exploit CRM strategies in order to build innovative, successful, customer-centric corporate cultures.

CRM is the future of business, but don't adopt it blindly. Unexpected challenges abound. As an example, a recent Alexander Group survey found that the top challenges for CRM success are not technology driven, but instead are the following (beginning with the most challenging):

• Managing employee resistance to change.

• Optimizing processes and job roles.

• Defining business requirements.

• Measuring the CRM solution's performance.

A CRM strategy must be structured with great care. It must take into account not only the company's...