My CRM goes to 11

When you live on a scale from 1 to 10, getting to 11 seems nearly impossible for anyone entrenched in the current thinking of CRM. Perhaps this is why Clay Christensen says growth exists where there are no numbers. No one even knows what 11 is, but they all want it.

Thus, we are constantly in pursuit of new features for stale, old CRM suites (or any other product or service for that matter). Even though the search for 11 is constant, no one know where to look; so CRM is stuck in the 1–10 world…yes even the elite vendors! I have to admit that I do see some pretty nice sustaining innovations on occasion; but they are things that have been clearly asked for by customers or partners over the years — the technology just hadn’t caught up yet. Disruptive innovation occurs along dimensions customers generally can’t articulate.

It becomes increasingly expensive as vendors pursue and offer the magical “11” feature…over and over again; when it’s actually 10.999999999. However, if you do find a way…