Is the title "CRM" dead? Are many companies tired of its promise? What can we call it now?

Jim Scott's answer pretty much echos the thoughts I posted under a previous question “Is it worth it to implement a free CRM?”

When all is said and done, labeling anything is merely a shortcut way to express a set of concepts that is meaningful to anyone familiar with the label. Hence how we choose to label or subsequently relabel something does not, ipso facto, ultimately result in that something being any more or less useful in consequence ~ it is still just a method of succinctly conveying the concepts represented by the label.

Now; if the concepts of the labeled something are expanded in a manner consistent with the original theme - such as by the addition of a feature that merely extends the scope of the original set of concepts while retaining the overall purpose of those concepts - there would appear to be no value in changing the label if the original label already still meaningfully conveys the purpose of the overall package of concepts.

On the other hand, if the package of concepts understood to be represented by the label are radically changed by either addition or subtraction of features that consequently change the very purpose of the something, then clearly it becomes essential to make a new label so as to clearly differentiate and delineate between the original and the modified purpose of the now two, effectively different, somethings.

For example, current day purpose of Material Requirements Planning has fundamentally been unchanged from the original purpose yet the conceptual scope today is significantly different resulting in changing its labeling from simple MRP to MRP II, meanwhile we now have added SCM - Supply Chain Management - as a tool which represents not only a much broader set of concepts than simple MRP but also serves a far greater overarching business purpose.

It is also important to recognize that the relevance of labeling is significant to the business using the something and completely meaningless and irrelevant to the business's customers. On the other hand, "CEM" = Customer Experience Management is a set of concepts meaningless from the business point of view albeit clearly meaningful from the point of view of a customer who is having the said "experience": But isn't the whole idea behind getting customers one of simply providing our potential customers with answers that solve their issues? Which surely brings us right back round to Customer Relationship Management! Hence the "purpose" of the package of concepts is still the only aspect of relevance in labeling or relabeling the package of concepts represented here.

So as I see it, if what we now see CRM as providing us as a business tool is still fundamentally about "Customer Acquisition and Retention" but, in order to improve our ability to profitably and effectively build our business, we need to expand the scope of our CRM processes to include additional elements and/or features all the while retaining the original purpose of "Customer Acquisition and Retention", then I see no reason or value in declaring CRM to be dead but every reason to expand the scope of CRM accordingly.

And finally, as Jim says and as I previously have observed, "it is people USING the tools that accomplished something": Herein lies the fundamental problem with the majority of CRM installations as distinct from there being any problem with the label, per se.

For CRM to accomplish its purpose for, and bring benefit to, the business, the "expectations" of results to be gained by implementing CRM must be clearly understood and all parties in using CRM must be fully aware of how to, and fully committed to, play their part in contributing data into the CRM system, and in utilizing the information output that effectively implemented and functioning CRM can provide when properly integrated into the business otherwise any such implementation will be an expensive exercise in futility regardless of the label.