Book Review 2

Now in its third (and apparently final) edition, CRM at the Speed of Light has something for everybody: it is in equal parts a customer relationship management (CRM) manual, a market survey of CRM solutions, and an opinion piece. As author Paul Greenberg sees it, CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a system and a technology, designed to improve human interactions in a business environment. It is a strategy that has enterprise-wide impact to existing business processes, and which encompasses business process management (BPM) as a component (partly because customers can be external or internal).

The book opens up with a discussion on understanding and defining CRM, as well as Greenberg's perspective on CRM, distinguishing data-driven CRM (applications created around building the 360-degree view of the customer) from process-driven CRM (a set of business processes and interactions that lead to a result from a customer). The book then goes on to present various modules of CRM: sales force automation (SFA), enterprise marketing management, partner relationship management (PRM), call center (customer interaction center) management, field service, and analytics.