The only source of competitive advantage is the one that can survive technology-fueled disruption — an obsession with understanding, connecting with, serving, and delighting customers. But as organizations strive to succeed in the age of the customer, business and IT professionals responsible for customer-facing processes still struggle with how to define CRM strategies, re-engineer customer-facing business processes, acquire and deploy the appropriate supporting technologies, and lead and sustain the necessary organizational changes.

Technology is radically changing your customers and your business. So how do you cope with digital disruption? The CRM playbook is a practical guide that focuses our research and recommendations to help you: discover opportunities; plan for success; take action; and optimize your customer relationships. Read the CRM executive overview and companion reports to take advantage of research, methodologies, and tools to guide you through these critical phases:

• Discover: This is where you’ll identify the trends that you should be keeping an eye on, understand the very complex technology landscape, and build the business case to justify your proposed investments.
• Plan: These reports help you assess the maturity of your current operations in order to pinpoint your strengths and areas of opportunity. They help you build a bulletproof strategic plan for improvement and will lay out a technology adoption road map that will help you provide differentiated customer experiences and at the same time contain costs.
• Act: With your planning in place, it’s now time to implement the organizational structures and governance practices. It’s also time to evaluate and choose the best technology platformsto turbocharge your customer interaction processes.
• Optimize: To continually improve, the optimize phase of our playbook will help you manage your performance, develop meaningful metrics, benchmark your performance, and communicate with and train stakeholders.

The CRM playbook is a living document, so be sure to check in regularly, as we will update these core reports with new data and examples. Beneath these core reports, expect a wealth of “toolkit” research, such as Forrester CRM Waves™ and CRM TechRadars™, as well as Excel-based models, PowerPoint templates, and checklists.