What Is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System? Even if you think you know the answer, the question has changed. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO state precisely what customer relationship management (CRM) means to everyone. The term has been applied to almost every element of business that even remotely interacts with a customer. In its infancy, CRM systems were a series of mainframe or server-based applications specific to sales, marketing and support business functions. The applications were lightweight by today's standards and did little more than capture and file critical data. But as cultural boundaries within organizations weakened, individual fiefdoms of information gave way to sophisticated applications that could span business functions. By doing so, these applications created the vision of a single view of the customer. For the first time, organizations could track and analyze shifting customer needs, link marketing campaigns to sales results, and monitor sales activities for improved forecasting accuracy and manufacturing demand. CRM's Evolution CRM has evolved since its earliest incarnation, originally driven by an inside-out focus, through three phases of evolution: technology, integration and process. Recently have we seen a major leap forward to a fourth phase: customer-driven CRM — an outside-in approach that has intriguing financial promise