The History Behind CRM

Dynamics 2013 has just been launched, however, CRM has not always been the software it is today, and it has actually evolved quite a bit over the last few years, and there has been many things that have happened that could have derailed the entire concept of the CRM industry.

The 1980s

Robert and Kate Kestnbaum pioneered the digital rolodexes and database marketing, which collected customer information, and then a statistical model was used to customize communications with other people who may have become customers.
Back in 1986 ACT debuted in the business world, and this allowed for a great amount of storage for people who collected customer contact info.
Once the 90s arrived, there was a major step taken, and this step was actually the first major step towards real (true) CRM software. The evolution of contact management was made possible thanks to Brock Control Systems, and they helped push CRM towards SFA, which is short for sales force automation. Features such as database marketing, were then automated and then SFA would combine them with contact management. Businesses found this very useful and it made doing certain tasks easier.
Tom Siebel ended up exiting Oracle in 1993, and that was when he decided to create Siebel Systems. Long story short, Siebel Systems became a leader in providing SFA to the public. By the time 1995 arrived, SFA and contact management, and this was when it started to resemble the CRM software that we are used to seeing today, but it is worth pointing out that at that point there was still no proper name for the emerging product. By the end of the year CRM became the official name, and the industry was now called something.

The 2000s

The dot-com bubble burst and this caused the CRM industry to be hit very hard, and the industry was at risk of becoming obsolete. However, in the early 2000s Paul Greenberg released a book about CRM, and by the end of the 00s, many people in the CRM industry started to think in a way that the book taught them to think about the industry as a whole.
Eventually Microsoft decided that it was time for them to enter the industry and they brought out Dynamics CRM, the most recent being Dynamics 2013, and Siebel was also acquired by Oracle. The next big change in the industry occurred in 2007, when Salesforce released a CRM that was cloud-based.
ComcastCares was then introduced to the market, which was an application that placed emphasis on more interaction than transactions. Many corporations decided to follow this example, which then made Social CRM mainstream.
By the end of the first decade, as well as up to present day, cloud-based solutions and SaaS CRM solutions continue to innovate and integrate more features, which include customer service and social CRM. They still continue to grow in popularity, and this is because the initial cost is not that high and they are easy to integrate with mobile devices.