The Widgetization of CRM — Part II

Almost two years ago, I wrote about the Widgetization of CRM; a concept where user interfaces were designed to support the job being done — nothing more, nothing less. This was born of my frustration as a CRM user who didn’t sit inside of a big, cumbersome and expensive CRM application all day; my job doesn’t look like that (does yours?). I was out doing other stuff, but did have the occasional need to look up a phone number, or record customer notes in various contexts.

Since then I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the jobs being done in the organizations I work with, including my own. I’ve realized, perhaps later than I should have, that there really is no front office and back office. This entire concept is rooted in the traditional ways we have organized our work. Thus, the applications supporting these have evolved as distinct silos of functionality and have been priced and sold as such.

Sure, accounting is fairly standard work guided by regulatory guidelines; but the people d…