What CRM Products Will Need To Do Better

The only real disruptive change we’ve seen in CRM has occurred over the past 10 years and was thrust upon us by Salesforce.com. At first, it didn’t appear to be a threat. It required a certain comfort level with losing control of your data. It also failed to provide the extensive customization we urged our customers they needed to be competitive. Of course, what we didn’t see was the CRM dilemma and the fact that there were a lot more non-consumers of contact management, sales force automation, marketing automation, etc. than there were consumers. It really opened up the door to a broader market, defined differently based on a newly identified set of needs. It didn’t seem Earth shattering then, but look at Marc Benioff do his mad rush up market now. I think SFDC, as a platform, has a chance at disrupting the high end of the market like they did the middle market. But I think that chance has limits unless something dramatic changes in the way we define CRM as a product and a service. T…