In a sluggish economy, customers spend less, making it doubly important for companies to gain share of customer rather than share of market.

It is in the nature of business intelligence today that in-house data often needs to be supported by external data to improve the quality of decision-making.

Integration of dispersed systems requires that complex decisions be made, as there is no quick fix.

Customisation shifts the focus to customers and their needs or wants, ensuring products and services take a secondary role in the CRM scenario.

Many IT departments have learned the hard and frustrating way that hand-coding a complete extraction, transformation and load application is a more daunting undertaking than they had realised.

Across the world, and here in SA, companies are coming to understand the consequences of poor data quality.

Every point of interaction with customers, even client complaints, should be used proactively.

The customer is king, but not all are created equal and every good customer is someone else`s prospect.

E-procurement and collaborating across the value chain is examined in the third and final column in a series on a step-by-step approach to the extended enterprise.

In the second of a series on a step-by-step approach to the extended enterprise, it is noted that a successful customer relationship management (CRM) strategy is dependent on a collaborative community.

Customer relationship management has entrenched itself in the corporate world during the last five years, but typical customer engagements are still centred on product sales, rather than on customer requirements.

Technology can free up human resource (HR) managers` time, enabling them to get back to traditional HR roles, like getting to know employees` names and needs.