If COVID has done anything, it’s given CEOs an opportunity to review business processes and to make wholesale changes. I suspect most businesses have reviewed every aspect of their operation and many will re-emerge from a quasi- state of hibernation to be far more efficient, effective, firms. However, what you sometimes see is a reluctance to ditch legacy systems, which are often a whole host of band aid solutions. Many salespeople will tell you that they make money in spite of their CRM system, and many will tell you that it adds little value to them. This can feed management reluctance, where change can involve significant capital investment and so the temptation to make short term savings can sometimes be too seductive. However, over the long term these changes can put firms on a faster growth curve than their competitors. If I remember one thing from the financial crisis, it was the firms that made big bets when things looked grim who grew much faster when the crisis dissipated.

For many firms, they have a sort of love/hate relationship. The see everything their system can’t do, they build around it, but they stick with it like an old comfort blanket, but it’s familiar and everyone knows how to use the useless thing they’ve created. It’s a strange logic, but one I suspect we’re all familiar with. In an article on Salesforce’s website they list the following as being key benefits of a good CRM solution: