This article discusses the urgent need for firms to successfully engage with customers, including handling issues such as social media and mobility, and at accomplishing this goal with smarter IBM collaboration and CRM solutions. It points to results IBM has achieved.

There is a fundamental shift in CRM today from simply being customer focused or customer-centric to proactively being customer-activated. Clients in today's consumer economy desire to be treated as individuals with very specific and highly personalized needs and they want their voices to be heard and acted upon.

Today, implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) application may not be enough to remain competitive. To gain market share and grow revenue, many companies complement a CRM application with other technologies. Business analytics, predictive analytics, collaboration and data integration can give you more insights about your customers.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is about tracking and managing business relationships. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is about managing business materials and processes. Together they can transform a business. This white paper examines how you can get the most from CRM and ERP, find the best system for your business and how IBM can help.