When presenting a specific concept of an IT system which is to support all the trade and marketing operations of the company, first of all, the general idea of such a system should be presented - in this case specifically of the CRM class system (Customer Relationship Management) - and its suitability should be assessed by examining estimated costs as compared to the expected effects.

The assumption is that CRM systems are to create the data base including information on all the events related to the provider's contacts with the customers - the company's all categories of customers. These solutions are to support better understanding of what and when the customers want to buy. Their task is to support the company's operations in the area of sales, marketing and customer service in all its aspects. The idea of these solutions is to provide information to the staff members who on that basis can take an optimal decision when contacting the customer.

An important task of the described solutions is control. Owing to the possibility of planning and recording many actions including all aspects of customer relations, the management obtain better tools for the analysis of quality and effectiveness of the manager's and employees' own work.

Currently, the most frequently met solutions are the registers of orders, sales events and settlements with customers. However, this type of information is "historic" in its nature. This is only the information on what, when and with whom the trade was made. It does not include the elements of projections, expectations and requirements of our customers and it does not present any premises for such reasoning.

The CRM systems constitute an attempt to supplement the process of sales registration. The objective of implementing such a system will be to create a complete description of the phenomena directly impacting the volume and quality of recorded sales as well as the description of events in the sales process directly before signing the invoice.

The back-office systems - ERP and MRP II - focus their actions on the own company. All the data are used in the aspect of results achieved by the Seller. The Customer is presented as the descriptive part related to the company's results. It is one of many attributes describing the turnover and incurred costs.

In the CRM systems this approach changes depending whether they are designed for Sales, Marketing Departments or Service Units. The subject in the system is our Customer. The files describing the Customer include many data, among others, the information on Settlements or Turnover, but in this case these data are of secondary importance. The information on Customer's preferences, on specific persons with whom we contact, the customer's satisfaction with our service, etc. are more important. The data collected in this manner will allow to implement the main assumption of CRM systems - development of long-term and close relations with the customer.

The CRM systems allow to collect and analyse all the phenomena impacting the volume and quality of registered sales. The data base in the CRM system is not limited only to collecting information on the customers who have already made a purchase from us. It requires also the registration of actions which relate also to potential customers whose data can never appear in our register of customers. This information includes many daily contacts with the customer, competition and co-employees. In such situations, contrary to the registration systems, two plus two does not always make four. Here the priority are the people not the figures.

CRM ensures such possibilities. It collects and allows to analyse and plan relevant sequences of salespersons' actions, based on standardised documentation and marketing information. It allows to develop the best blueprints of salespersons' work and transfer them to other staff members responsible for customer service. In addition, it allows to assign relevant tools and processes to different types of sales, dynamically manage human resources, controlling their actions in terms of customer service quality.

Therefore, we can state that ERP, MRP II systems and CRM systems are complementary. A potential customer of the CRM solution should treat this investment as a further and necessary stage of company's IT infrastructure development - the stage the objective of which is to maximally use the possibilities of the to date applied integrated system. In other words, the company offering good products will not be successful if it has nothing to record in its systems.

Present sales and marketing relations are established in the majority of companies, first of all, through the phone, computer - e-mail, fax, telephone (also mobile), sms, icq. All these contacts can be automatically recorded and archived by the system, while the work is done. The data from the financial-accounting programmes or sales programmes are also automatically input into the system. The sales module included in the CRM-Comers can be also used. Personal contacts and letters are traditionally important, however, less frequent. These must be entered "manually" through separate entries.

It is easier to enter the currently predominant electronic form of recording data to the IT system than to trace written or verbal staff's reports and statements. These data are available at every moment in every context (data on the customer, employee, promotional campaign or product) and they are subject to a multilevel analysis.

The CRM-Comers system can be not only an efficient tool for the teams dealing with gaining and providing sales services to customers but, first of all, it allows to analyse the manner of executing marketing and sales plans. Hearing the telephone calls, examining the scope and timeliness of correspondence allows to asses not only the level of service in the case of each customer but it also allows to get to know his expectations, comments and intentions. A good knowledge in this area ensures familiarity with the market and allows to develop efficiently one's own sales activity.

Part of system responsible for the post-sales service and customer service is also very important. The collected data allow to trace the delivered services on an on-going basis - who provides them, which products are sold, whether the deadlines are met, etc. Then it can be examined whether the sold devices are technically good, what service level we provide along with them and how the customers assess our skills and competence.