The role of customer relationship management (CRM) strategies within organizations has grown thanks to the development of cloud computing, a commentator has observed.
Chris DiMarco, a web editor for TMCnet, noted that while CRM was once regarded as simply a "construction platform" for customer databases, it has evolved into a major differentiator of a business or organization's overall strategy.
"The emergence of cloud has opened up the gates for third party providers to integrate with CRMs for a variety of business applications," he said.
"Previously confined to sales, marketing and customer service applications, CRM can now be integrated with all aspects of business software."
Indeed, Mr DiMarco argued that by providing a wide overview of "the customer experience", CRM technology can now be used to generate leads and improve operations in a range of areas such as advertorial and tech support.
The comments come as Jim Harris of Smart Data Collective noted this week that there continues to be a progression in the data quality market away from "esoteric technical tools" and towards "business-empowering suites providing robust functionality".
Posted by Rachel Wheeler