Every organization has different CRM needs. When considering CRM for a specific organization, these primary components should bear in mind:

Sales automation streamlines the sales process and helps salespeople and their supervisors manage both customers and the sales cycle through such applications as contact managers, opportunity or pipeline managers and order entry.

Marketing automation is a set of applications that help marketers manage and simplify the marketing process. Applications include campaign management; email marketing, database marketing and data marts and marketing encyclopedias.

Customer Service / Call Centers are the primary conduits between consumers and corporations. Customer Service is the primary business process for creating customer loyalty, promoting customer retention and ultimately increasing customer value while reducing cost of sales.

Analytics covers the process of extrapolating (generalizing by drawing from specific cases for general cases) true business intelligence from dissimilar customer data sources in order to segment, analyze, and serve the consumer in the most efficient manner possible. Additionally, analytics is also getting predictive, empowering businesses to identify how a customer is likely to respond to different sales and marketing campaigns.

Channel Management is the process of extending an enterprise's internal knowledge resources and business processes to its suppliers and partners outside the company's intranet. Most typically channel management is used to describe the way a company interacts with its sales channel but its definition can also be extended to other partner relationships beyond the sales process. Applications and solutions are designed for streamlining and automating the back end / supply chain processes.

Integration involves tying together CRM applications with other information technology (IT) systems inside either a mid-market company or an enterprise environment. This can include integrating with current enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, databases, Internet and intranet applications, human resources and employee management software and partner and supply chain systems.