I was reading this article What created this Monster? which attempts to find the root of current collapse in financial markets, and it occurred to me that perhaps there are some similarities between the results of deregulation of financial markets and “democratization” of information.

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  CRM, if it’s working right, is a tool for destroying the 80-20 business equation.

The best examples of CRM wrecking 80-20 rule are experienced when methodology is formalized, integrated into business processes and encoded within software. Few examples to illustrate the point are dramatic improvements in

• margin via elimination of excessive discounting caused by inadequate forecasting methods and practices;
• new sales hires retention and rump up enabled by clearly stated process guidance, terminology, and definitions; 
• lead conversion ratio since streamlining of pipeline management eliminates “stale” leads;
• customer satisfaction, i.e. retention enabled by flowing customer (contact/person) information across departments/sales teams/customer support/marketing, etc. within a proper context.

That makes CRM initiatives such a high risk/but much higher return proposition - if done right the ROI is much higher and faster than most of other options.

Let’s face it - primary responsibility of IT today is a risk management, not investment into loosely defined concepts like Enterprise 2.0. (more…)