Diploma Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Customer Relationship Management, CRM, grade: 1, University of Linz (IDV - Institut für Datenverarbeitung in den Sozial und Wirtschaftswissenschaften), language: English, abstract: Foreword The reason why I chose this topic for my thesis is mainly because of the fact that I have been working as a Consultant for a software company where my main responsibilities are focused on implementing CRM Solutions for small and medium sized companies in Austria. My experiences in this segment were influenced by the meetings with vendors of such solutions as well as during the planning, implementing and service phases with the customer. The projects I have been involved and the studying of news-related articles, websites and magazines in this market strengthened my opinion that Customer Relationship Management has raised a lot of attention amongst the business world in recent years. Not only the hype - but also problems that occurred with Customer Relationship Management forced companies to re-think their methodology and business strategy. Analysts and business men are still aware of the power and growing importance of CRM technology. Companies are adopting the benefits of 360-degree view into their organization that is used to gain higher return on investment of marketing-campaigns and to handle more effectively and efficient customer service. The productivity and value of CRM solutions is steadily increasing because of the influence of the Internet and the possibilities for mobile office integration. The new approach to define CRM not as a single software tool but moreover as perhaps one of the most important keys to support and redesign a company's business strategy is showing the shift from traditional software to CRM for the 21 st century. On demand services and wireless integration makes the current state-of-the-art solutions scalable, easier to adopt and offer affordable utilities to realize also the visions of small and medium sized companies. [...]