The Differences between CRM and Traditional Systems

Worldwide, the market of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is increasing as more companies acknowledge its importance. It is expected to reach $36.5B by 2017 from $31.7B in 2016 (Columbus, 2013). Despite the growing number of the market, there are many businesses prefer to use traditional systems. This blog post discusses CRM and its differences to traditional systems. This blog post also overviews requirements toward successful CRM. CRM versus Traditional Systems CRM is “a set of software programs that support management activities performed to obtain, enhance relationships with, and retain customers” (Pearlson and Saunders, 2013, p.153). It allows the business to have a more comprehensive understanding of customers’ profiles which are pulled from all electronic touch points such as website/the internet, e-mail, call centre, KIOSKS, in real-time (Chen and Popovich, 2003). Based on the profiles (i.e. demography, geography, and consumer b...