CRM
A CRM is the system that holds everything about a customer relationship — who they are, every conversation, every quote, where the deal stands — so the relationship belongs to the business rather than to whoever happens to own the inbox.
Also written: customer relationship managementArabic: نظام إدارة علاقات العملاء
The real argument for one
Not reporting. Continuity. When a salesperson leaves and their pipeline leaves with them, the company did not lose a person — it lost records it never actually held.
Where it overlaps with an ERP
A CRM owns the relationship before the order; the ERP owns everything after it. Most arguments about which system should hold a customer are really arguments about where that handover happens, and they are worth settling explicitly rather than letting each team assume.
Why they fail
Almost always adoption. A CRM nobody updates is a worse record than a spreadsheet somebody does, because it is trusted. If entering data takes longer than the deal is worth, it will not be entered, and no amount of policy fixes that.
Related terms
Questions people ask
Probably not a dedicated one. The threshold is when more than one person touches the same relationship, or when you cannot answer "what did we last tell them" without asking someone.
Related serviceERP implementation