Do Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and John Von Neumann have anything to do with CRM systems? It turns out that the most effective way to evaluate a prospective system vendor is through the lenses of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

To paraphrase Peter Drucker, the purpose of a business is to create a customer profitably. Simplistic as it may sound, it translates into generating insights to create winning products; acquiring customers in the face of competition; retaining existing customers with higher expectations and providing superior service.

For your CRM system to help you do that, however, you must align your proposed system with your organization's business strategy and gain acceptance by user base. And that means evaluating your prospective technology vendor through the lenses of physics, chemistry and math. Here's why:

• Physics represents the ability of the system to meet requirements of the business
• Chemistry concerns soft issues comprising user preferences, organizational dynamics
• Math refers to Total Cost of Ownership