What is "xRM" anyway?!?

So by now you're probably wondering what all this hype about "xRM" is (or so we hope)!  Heck you may even be wonder just what it is in the first place!!

To make it simple, "xRM" is the next generation of what most organizations traditionally refer to as "CRM".  The "x" replaces the traditional "Customer" value in the acronym to become a variable.  This means that while the product name is "CRM" it can be configured as a xRM system.

 For example, in a traditional environment, the "Customer" might be a purchaser of a product that is for sale (like a bike).  However, in a medical office, the role of "Customer" is replaced with a "Patient".  "Patient" now becomes one fold of the usage for the new variable of "x".  Alternatively, a veterinary office might replace "Customer" with "Pet".  A Pharmaceutical sales organization might replace "Customer" with "Doctor" or "Provider", and so on.

If you look a little deeper under the covers of "xRM" you'll note that the last part of the acronym is also taking on new forms.  While it stands for "Relationship Management" and will continue to stand for this, the concept of which relationships is also taking new meaning due to the extreme flexibility in the CRM product.

Traditionally, CRM systems related buyers to purchases (Customers to Orders), but now in the world of "xRM" these relationships can get much more complex and unique.  For example, a General Practicioner's medical office may have a relationship with their Patient who then has a relationship to his/her insurance provider who then has a relationship to a Dermatologist's medical office.  In an "xRM" environment ALL of these relationships can be managed to whatever level the organization requires.  For this reason you'll see lots of xRM deployments use the CRM application to replace many other internal applications other than just things like Patient Relationship Management systems.

We've seen xRM applications replace EVERY transactional line of business application in an organization with the only exceptions being with ERP and collaboration technologies (SharePoint).  Otherwise anything becomes replacable with an xRM solution!!!