a blog

What CRM Can Learn From Linux

THIS IS THE AGE OF “ME”. Call it Gen Y, the era of narcissists, whatever. The fact is that we expect the world to revolve around us in a way unimaginable to our fathers. And no, I am not going to issue a moral judgment here. I am part of the movement, too.

I want get things done my way.

For example, when I buy an MP3 player, I want to be able to get new music via any kind of online service, not just the one provided by the manufacturer or their partner. Don’t you? Vendor lock-in is so 20th century! Choice is the new mantra, and so if freedom.

Which is where Linux comes into the picture. Much of its allure comes from the fact that it lets you create and re-create a highly personalized value chain that corresponds to and answers to your particular needs. You get to be in control.

You.

You, the only person in the world that matters.

The infrastructure that supports it is completely transparent. Open Source means you have an X-ray view of your computer and if you want to, you can move the pieces around, which is something an X-ray machine won’t let you do. Apply the analogy to the physical world, and you’ll see where I am going. In order to satisfy your unpredictable and changing needs, companies and markets have to be transparent; they have to be built from glass and be at your command.

Get a burger, run configure --prefix=/me --with-mayonnaise && make && make install.

CRM has been about processes, but you can’t design a process that can accommodate me if you don’t know there are people who like burgers with mayonnaise. We are not state machines but ad-hoc creatures, driven by instincts and dreams and aspirations too complex to fit in a database table. And since the era of AI still seems to be far away, the way to make business interactions more personalized and more valuable seems to be in making them de-centralized. Your company can’t foresee all my needs but a dozen or a hundred companies might. When working together, they can deliver the value I need and make a profit along the way.

Imagine what this would look like.

.

.

.

Companies don’t matter anymore. They’re functional units designed to provide a particular value, operating in a perfect synergy. They provide the building blocks, services with open interfaces that you can take and assemble in a way most useful to you. Think Teqlo or Yahoo! Pipes. Then imagine than you could just as easily take a physical product, say a book from Amazon, and connect it with your preferred delivery service, say UPS, without having to explain to Amazon why you want to do that (I am borrowing this example from you, Paul, but I can’t find the link – sorry!). Or that you could tell your bank to route your electronic statements through an online PDF generator, or whatever.

The infrastructure that will support this isn’t just CRM (in the technical sense); CRM, however, is the governing philosophy that all processes are ultimately customer-oriented (affecting the value chain), so the next-gen CRM will go far beyond Activities, Opportunities, and Campaigns. It will be a company operating system, an open-source one. And you’ll have the poweruser account.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

March 9, 2007 | Filed Under CRM, Open Source 

comments

Comments are closed.

Additional comments powered by BackType

  • subscribe

  • One man's microISV

    Playground - an on-demand requirements management tool helping you get the right things done.

  • Lifestream

    • RT @MilosLenoch: wow, kentico featured by 37signals! http://bit.ly/cGjRL5 about 8 hours ago
    • ... problem is they are already there about 25 days ago
    • So the Taliban stoned some adulterers recently. I wish US/NATO would bomb them back to the Stone Age but the problems about 25 days ago
    • Not sure that Wave is gone altogether. I can imagine it creeping into Gmail eventually. But why didn't they kill Buzz instead? about 35 days ago
    • Rooting for Uruguay. Still bad memories of CZ vs NL a couple years back. Plus I really like URU's game. #worldcup about 65 days ago
    • @ktorn what kind of app are you going to make for your Samsung? about 66 days ago
    • Firefox 4 nighly looks pretty good to me. But I still have to restart it after installing add-ons? Hope they'll fix that one day soon. about 71 days ago
    • I love that I can put MY photo on friggin Google HOMEPAGE! about 91 days ago
    • Or more precisely, it does seem a bit smarter AFTER you've visited a given URL that corresponds with the query about 94 days ago